Well Abrupt Decay cannot be countered...the issue how many 3 CMC things do you need to kill. It doesnt exile so its not stopping the graveyard recursion decks be they creature or artifact based and it misses most of what Tron and UW Control wish to protect. Not to mention Humans and Spirits just have critical mass...
I feel like the new Assassin's Trophy might push BGx decks to be more powerful than ours unfortunately. Its a better card than Terminate or Dreadbore which are our unconditional removal spells. What do ya'll think?
Assassin's trophy may be a house in standard and could warrant some legacy play but in modern the card is for almost all intents and purposes outclassed by Abrupt Decay. Jund and Abzan would only want to play it as a means to disrupt Tron on turn 2 on the draw, but I don't see it being more than a Sideboard card for them.
Trophy will actually be at its best in modern. The uncounterable clause is way more important in legacy than it is in modern. And decay is really bad in modern right now. Trophy will absolutely be played maindeck as a 3 or 4 of. I think you are really underevaluating the card overall.
I actually think the printing of Assassin's Trophy may make this deck better positioned. I would love to play midrange MUs all day if I was at a tournament with Mardu. An increase in GBx is definitely the type of meta we thrive in.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Check out some Magic Gameplay and Commentary videos here, including Modern Grixis, Jeskai, and Esper videos as well as some Standard and Drafts too: My YouTube Channel!
It is a common observation that Mardu's performance is dramatically improved for the games that you draw Faithless Looting. Games without Looting tend to run clunkier -- we can get stuck on 2 lands, we might draw into worse cards like late game discard / a pointless Moon / target-less spot removal, our Revelers come down slower, and so forth all contributing to lost games. Our deck certainly benefits from a little extra grease and all of the other past options in Mardu colors have been lackluster.
Enter Discovery, a 2-CMC black filtering cantrip. It's not Preordain -- the extra mana is a lot! -- it can't help us keep 1-land hands and we'd have to take T2 "off" to cast it so it’s mostly useful in the mid game onwards. From that standpoint it's tempting to dismiss Discovery outright. On the other hand Surveil has good synergy with our Flashback spells / Reveler (the ceiling would be to Surveil two Souls into the yard), it's a better immediate topdeck than late-game Looting, and I think our deck benefits from some "grease" enough that this might be worth trying, perhaps as a 1-of supplement to the standard playset of Looting.
Hey folks.. got 2nd conceding in the finals of my local pptq. (50 something ppl)
played Selfeisek's most recent 5-0 list. I like lightning helix a lot... being able to hit mantis rider and also gives you a little more reach.
my matchup's
R1 2-0 Infect
R2 2-1 Blue moon
R3 2-1 Mardu Pyromancer (closer to the Gerry Thompson list for the pt)
R4 0-2 Bant spirits
R5 2-1 Humans
R6 ID (got paired against a friend.. good chance we both make top 8 with ID)
Top 8 (made 8th seed)
Quarterfinals 2-0 Hardened Scales
Semifinals 2-0 Bridgevine (had blue with prized amalgam)
Finals Offered concession.
Had only played for fun of it. my OP in finals wanted the Invite.. so the split was him getting inv and me getting first and second place price pool.
Felt good about the deck. had not made any changes to the stock 5-0 list due to the fact I had not been playing it a lot lately. I expected a lot of blue control and wanted something good vs control, humans and infect.
Seems like mardu didn’t really get anything from Guild of Ravnica. I’m hoping rakdos or orzhov will have something for use in the next set.
@smilely: grays on the results! What deck did you play in the finals?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Being that the only guild spoiled in mardu colors is boros, and white is a splash at best in the current configuration, im not suprised. Rakdos is the most likely to have something of value, however it makes me wonder what mardu is looking for from the next set. We already have access to the best creature removal and dicard has to offer, another threat maybe?
I'm really hoping we get a new threat, another method of card draw/filtering, or a removal spell kind of like dreadbore that can also hit enchantments.
If it is a removal spell they probably won't make assassin's trophy pt.2, but they might make it a bit more flexible than something we already have.
If I were to hazard a guess as to what we'll actually end up getting I'd say nothing worth using.
@smiley: just wondering. I still like to play it out just to see what would have happened. Unless I’m tired and ready to go.
Between hazoret and rabblemaster, we have some good threats. I’m not sure they could print a filter spell better than looting that wouldn’t just cause modern to spiral into degenerate graveyard decks.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
Pretty standard looking list, save for some changes to the sideboard and 1x Night's Whisper MB and another 1x SB, which seems like interesting tech for grindy match-ups. Helps solve a problem I often have where I quickly run out of steam when I don't see one of my Faithless Lootings.
I agree with Seth's sentiment of wanting some extra filtering or card draw to help when you don't have Looting, as I outlined in my previous post considering 1x Discovery for a similar role. However, Burn is thriving right now and in general I'd prefer to make the Burn matchup better instead of worse as Seth has with more lifeloss and only 2 copies of Brutality/Helix in the 75. Furthermore many of the top decks are fairly aggressive outside of UWx Control, so I'd need to see some more games and hear a bit more thoughts on Night's Whisper before I get on board. I also think that running only one Dreadbore has slowly moved from "meta/style preference" to "probably just incorrect". Everything else looks pretty solid / stock to me.
I've been contemplating running a copy of painful truths since I have 3 helix and a brutality main that would mitigate the life loss.
For clarity, I don't play moons or lilianas so in all I would still have a lower curve than stock lists, but I'm unsure if possibly taking a turn off to draw 3 and lose 3 life is worth a slot.
Best case scenario we get an instant speed Dreadbore?
Its possible especially in a post Assasin's Trophy world but I doubt RB will get pushed in Ravnica Allegiance considering Rb spent months dominating Standard.
Did red/black Aggro actually play any r/b cards? Maybe a few ran unlicensed disintegration but not all of them. Hopefully wotc won’t hold that against us.
So watching seth’s Video, his sideboard had 3 leylines and 3 surgicals. I get his reasoning that they do different things in different match ups but that’s a lot of space taken up. Just not sure about that. I’ve also tried Nahiri out and I think she works really well with this deck. Four mana can be a lot and I often had to discard her because I’d be behind in a match.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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.
It played a few Unlicensed Disintegrations sometimes but mostly it was Rb because Scrapheap Scrounger needed Black Mana for its ability and it was the best two drop available with Kari Zev as the secondary option..
But also my theory is Red was pushed cause Kaladesh was about Chandra. Samut also had Red in her Color ID, you could say it was her main color. Whereas as I expect Ravnica to not be so much about Red Walkers.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Trophy will actually be at its best in modern. The uncounterable clause is way more important in legacy than it is in modern. And decay is really bad in modern right now. Trophy will absolutely be played maindeck as a 3 or 4 of. I think you are really underevaluating the card overall.
It is a common observation that Mardu's performance is dramatically improved for the games that you draw Faithless Looting. Games without Looting tend to run clunkier -- we can get stuck on 2 lands, we might draw into worse cards like late game discard / a pointless Moon / target-less spot removal, our Revelers come down slower, and so forth all contributing to lost games. Our deck certainly benefits from a little extra grease and all of the other past options in Mardu colors have been lackluster.
Enter Discovery, a 2-CMC black filtering cantrip. It's not Preordain -- the extra mana is a lot! -- it can't help us keep 1-land hands and we'd have to take T2 "off" to cast it so it’s mostly useful in the mid game onwards. From that standpoint it's tempting to dismiss Discovery outright. On the other hand Surveil has good synergy with our Flashback spells / Reveler (the ceiling would be to Surveil two Souls into the yard), it's a better immediate topdeck than late-game Looting, and I think our deck benefits from some "grease" enough that this might be worth trying, perhaps as a 1-of supplement to the standard playset of Looting.
Thoughts?
draw a card, surveil 2
like serum vision but with surveil instead of scry ... :/
played Selfeisek's most recent 5-0 list. I like lightning helix a lot... being able to hit mantis rider and also gives you a little more reach.
my matchup's
R1 2-0 Infect
R2 2-1 Blue moon
R3 2-1 Mardu Pyromancer (closer to the Gerry Thompson list for the pt)
R4 0-2 Bant spirits
R5 2-1 Humans
R6 ID (got paired against a friend.. good chance we both make top 8 with ID)
Top 8 (made 8th seed)
Quarterfinals 2-0 Hardened Scales
Semifinals 2-0 Bridgevine (had blue with prized amalgam)
Finals Offered concession.
Had only played for fun of it. my OP in finals wanted the Invite.. so the split was him getting inv and me getting first and second place price pool.
Felt good about the deck. had not made any changes to the stock 5-0 list due to the fact I had not been playing it a lot lately. I expected a lot of blue control and wanted something good vs control, humans and infect.
@smilely: grays on the results! What deck did you play in the finals?
If it is a removal spell they probably won't make assassin's trophy pt.2, but they might make it a bit more flexible than something we already have.
If I were to hazard a guess as to what we'll actually end up getting I'd say nothing worth using.
i think he was on Bogles tho.
Between hazoret and rabblemaster, we have some good threats. I’m not sure they could print a filter spell better than looting that wouldn’t just cause modern to spiral into degenerate graveyard decks.
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=14864&writer=Seth Manfield&articledate=9-19-2018.
Pretty standard looking list, save for some changes to the sideboard and 1x Night's Whisper MB and another 1x SB, which seems like interesting tech for grindy match-ups. Helps solve a problem I often have where I quickly run out of steam when I don't see one of my Faithless Lootings.
B/G Rock BG | Jund BGR | Mardu Pyromancer BRW | Ponza RG | Burn RW
I agree with Seth's sentiment of wanting some extra filtering or card draw to help when you don't have Looting, as I outlined in my previous post considering 1x Discovery for a similar role. However, Burn is thriving right now and in general I'd prefer to make the Burn matchup better instead of worse as Seth has with more lifeloss and only 2 copies of Brutality/Helix in the 75. Furthermore many of the top decks are fairly aggressive outside of UWx Control, so I'd need to see some more games and hear a bit more thoughts on Night's Whisper before I get on board. I also think that running only one Dreadbore has slowly moved from "meta/style preference" to "probably just incorrect". Everything else looks pretty solid / stock to me.
WUBRGCommander Decklists - PaperWUBRG
CCCCCommander Decklists - TheorycraftCCCC
Sig Credit: Pegasus Bishop
For clarity, I don't play moons or lilianas so in all I would still have a lower curve than stock lists, but I'm unsure if possibly taking a turn off to draw 3 and lose 3 life is worth a slot.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Its possible especially in a post Assasin's Trophy world but I doubt RB will get pushed in Ravnica Allegiance considering Rb spent months dominating Standard.
So watching seth’s Video, his sideboard had 3 leylines and 3 surgicals. I get his reasoning that they do different things in different match ups but that’s a lot of space taken up. Just not sure about that. I’ve also tried Nahiri out and I think she works really well with this deck. Four mana can be a lot and I often had to discard her because I’d be behind in a match.
But also my theory is Red was pushed cause Kaladesh was about Chandra. Samut also had Red in her Color ID, you could say it was her main color. Whereas as I expect Ravnica to not be so much about Red Walkers.