I like your build but instead of the Extirpates I would suggest using a couple Nihil Spellbomb. The Spellbombs have a good synergy as well as gives the player an extra draw in general. Also with the Athreos I consider that slot to be up to player preference anything from Blood Moon to Liliana of the Veil. Everything in this deck is dependent on your local meta.
Been watching alot of esper mentor game play. Unearth + mentor is very very good. but a strength of that deck is unearth + snap.
Seeing how that deck plays and the power of prowess on tokens and on mentor makes me feel that we should go all in on an unearth mardu mentor build. I think that faithless looting in mardu colors would be better than the pro to having snap in esper colors. Having skelemental in our colors is also something that shouldnt be over looked. Not to mention K-command. Mardu mentor could be a very powerful and resiliant deck.
Id say unearth is really really strong i like the card a lot as it gives us even more free discard with looting, i took all of the PWS out of my list as they didnt do what i wanted but now im looking to fill the gap, is kayas guile really that powerful or should i just shill out the $30 for a mentor
Was playing jeskai tempo vs a esper death shadow list and Kaya's guile was absolutely back breaking. Dude gained 8 life, sacced my geist of st traft and exiled my grave. I had him at 3 life twice but the guiles saved him... Twice. its a very efficient card and does help alot vs mardu's burn matchup.
As for mentors i think its very good. Idk if i would buy them now or wait but i know ive seen them in alot of UW control sideboards as well as a couple mainboard and ive seen many mentor unearth lists in esper colors popping up all over the place. So maybbeee it wouldnt be bad to pick up 2 since that should be about the amount mardu should play in my opinion.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern RUAffinityUR GMono Green StompyG CEldrazi TronC URWJeskai GeistWRU WRBoros BurnRW BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
finally picked up most of the parts for what I'd need to play the post Horizons versions of the list, so here's what I'm hoping to run something similar to at an MCQ this Saturday
I feel that the deck needs a lot of work before the MCQ on Saturday, sideboard feels awful. I'll probably cut the rabbles and some number of wear/tear for a few copies of celestial purge and a few other cards, probably blood moons. I feel like I have too many 3 cmc spells in the main and not sure what to cut down on.
I’d consider replacing the 3x k commands with 3x unearths. Like you said you have a lot of three drops and pitching a pyromancer and getting it back with unearth feels great. I’ve found that the k command raise dead effect is worse in this deck for that reason.
Sideboard wise, you might want to look at ashiok, blood moon, fulminator mage, and plague engineer. You already have 4x leylines, but the ability to fill your graveyard and prevent searching in addition to hitting theirs can be pretty backbreaking. Plague engineer is great in any fair matchup and is almost always a 2 for 1 I’ve found. Fulminator mage I also like more than molten rain. Again both get better when you put unearth in.
What are people feeling on Yawgmoth and Dreadhorde Arcanist? I'm sort of new to this deck. I feel like Yawgmoth is only good against tribal decks and maybe control. Dreadhorde feels good against literally every deck. Is there something I'm missing, or should Yawgmoth definitely become Dreadhordes? (Side note: I run the list with 8 octomancers)
Yawgmoth allows you to sac a token and draw a card, which is an extremely powerful effect when you run 4x souls seasoned and young Pyromancers. If I resolve it and I’m not dead on board I almost always win the game. It really allows you to out grind most decks.
Also the profilerate lets you take out multiple bigger threats than x/1’s. Having 4 toughness is huge and the protection from humans is also often relevant. Cards a house in the deck but drawing multiple sucks, and 4 mana is a lot. 2 seems to be the perfect amount.
Round 1 I lost to BW tokens 1-2. Game 1 I mulled to 5 because I couldn't get lands and I feel too far behind. Game 2 I outraced him. Game3 I beleive I mulled to 6 and I fell behind quickly. There wasn't much to this match.
0-1
Round 2 I quickly lose to 5 colour Niv Mizzet reborn. Game 1 I basically didn't bolt the bird and he resolved an early Niv which I couldn't deal with. Game 2 he resolved a turn 2 Wrenn and Sixx, which he top decked and I couldn't deal with. He hit the mana he needed and I couldn't keep up.
0-2, basically dead for top 8 but I wanted to see how I could recover, it actually gets really good from here.
Round 3 I quickly 2-0 storm. Game 1 was a combination of me effectively removing his mana reducers and him not drawing lands to go off without the cost reducers. Game 2 he kept a hand with multiple copies of empty the warrens and he kept having to go off for low numbers just to not die.
1-2, still not in good shape but I tell myself to take it round by round and see what happens
Round 4 I beat Cheerios 2-1. He goes off game 1 and I lose. Game 2 I applied enough pressure to kill him before he could do much. Game 3 he kept a hand with double paradoxical outcome and I run him over
2-2, getting better.
Round 5 I 2-1 Bant infect. Games 1 and 3 I basically kill any creature he has and I win. Him going to 5 cards game 1 helps. Game 2 he gets me with what I can't kill
3-2, winning 3 in a row has me in a great mood so that helped me go further
Round 6 I 2-1 some kind of Dimir prison deck running both 3 mana Lilies, chalice and the Karn, the great creator package. Game 1 I took advantage of him stumbling on lands and I ran him over. Game 2 he has double plague engineer and I can never recover. Game 3 he had several board wipes and ensnaring bridge in hand after I thoughtseized something else important, I believe some kind of walker. Later on I took the bridge. The game plan that game for most of it was just bait the board wipe and not extend into it. I think he got confused and just played stuff that was easy for me to stop
4-2, I'm at a spot where I can prize if I keep winning
Round 7 I very easily crush humans. Game 1 we both mull and he keeps a slow 6 on the play that didn't do much other than a freebooter that he uses to take an unearth instead of discard or removal. Game 2 he mulls to 6 and probably takes more damage than he should before using the deputy of detention I already knew about. He died not long after dropping the deputy
5-2, 27th after 7, with prizing down to top 32. I felt like I could probably draw last round but didn't offer it because my opponent was 35th
Round 8 I got run over by Izzet Phoenix. Game 1 I was close to stabilizing but then he drops Aria of Flame and casts a lot of spells. Game 2 came down to him needing a way to deal the last 2 damage to me and he draws into a second Phoenix
5-3 finish, not bad after an 0-2 start. I finished 36th, so just missed top 32 prizing. an interesting note is that I avoided thopter sword and Hogaak all day, I'm assuming because of my 0-2 start causing me to play people with more losses throughout the day
Thanks for your report - a really great read. Glad to hear that you recovered from a rough start.
I'm currently selling my druid combo deck to build this one. I like the idea of playing a little more fair and interactive magic. I also like the way we can swap between a controlling type deck or an aggro deck. Thanks again for your report. Cheers!
I feel there were multiple things that helped me decide to keep playing. the first one was that I hadn't played anything comp REL in a few months, so I didn't really want to just 0-2 drop after paying that much money. Even if I didn't recover so well, I would have gotten more reps in so I'd be better off next time.
I'm not sure if this is a factor but I feel I could have practiced more with this version of the deck
I feel PtE is pretty mediocre against Titan and Hogaak.
An experienced Titan player will most likely search for a second Titan once the first one resolves, since he knows we'll be trying to outgrind him. We won't even be able to try to disrupt them properly, since they can just keep the Tolarian in hand and we can't discard lands. Than the second one is probably searching for a third one, and the third can search the fourth, so... unless you have 3 or 4 PtE in hand, it'll probably not be enough. You'd probably have a much better chance with Blood Moons. Once the first Titan resolves, if you have no Blood Moon or pressure enough to try to kill your opponent on the swing back, you're pretty much dead.
Hogaak plays a lot of recursive threats and mills a lot of cards. You might remove a Hogaak with a Path, but than you're probably losing to a couple Vengevines, Bloodghasts, Gravecrawlers or even a second Hogaak. Not to mention the possibility of them having a Carrion Feeder and just dodge the PtE. Unless they have a pretty crappy start, I don't think PtE would make much difference.
I do think PtE improves our Phoenix match-up by a good amount though.
First of all you rule - I have always loved your work on primers and this one is really cracker!
Just a query for you all, do we think it's time that we needed an updated version of the primer?
I think many things for the deck have changed including some matchups that on longer exist (KCI being one)
Any support for this idea?
So I've been playing around with this deck the past few weeks and am planning on playing it at an upcoming mcq. I'm settling around something like this right now:
Even though I vouched for Yawgmoth earlier, the more I think about it the more I think hes a little too slow. I may go back and test putting him back in later, but for the moment hes out.
I had the idea to add 2x Smuggler's Copter a week ago and in testing it has been overperforming. The deck needed a slightly faster clock, and the copter fills the role of an aggressive 2 drop really nicely. It dodges sorcery speed removal which is nice, is easy to crew with tokens/young pyro (only once in ~ 50 games have I not been able to crew it), and the looting is huge in the deck. Feels much better than Yawgmoth.
I added 3x paths instead of fatal pushes/collective brutalities. The copters are a discard outlet, so I don't feel like I need the brutalities anymore, which felt slow and not super impactful. Paths definitely help in the eldrazi, whir, and UR phoenix matchups over fatal push, and I have a feeling they will be better against hogaak, however I have only played 1 of those matchups and it didn't come into play. My gut feeling is that 3x smiting helix + 4x bolt is enough to deal with small stuff, so path is probably the dedicated removal spell of choice for the deck.
Lightning Skelemental feels good, but Im not 100% sold on it. It is great with unearth, but if you pay 3 and they pitch 1-2 useless cards you feel like you've spent one of the more important turns on just 6 damage. I'm going to test it a bit more, but at the moment I haven't decided how good it is. I may test -3 Skelementals +2 Monestary mentor + 1 Yawgmoth (or possibly mainboard rabblemaster). Any input here is appreciated.
I also still need to finalize the manabase + sideboard. I'm temporarily cheating a bit on the lands for budget reasons, but also the change of - Yawgmoth and + Paths makes white more important and black less so (no more double black). Considering changing the sulfurous springs (blackcleave cliffs) for a r/w dual or some more fetches (ideal but don't have atm).
Sideboard-wise the two most impactful cards for me have been blood moon (it often just steals games) and plague engineer (also really good against the deck). I feel like I should keep the 4x leylines, even though I have not run into much hogaak at my lgs (but I expect more at the mcq). Kambal I tested for a while, but felt honestly too slow. Its great vs burn, but not that good vs U/R phoenix (one of the main decks I put it in for). If they play thing in the ice, they often flip it and just push through the life swing, or bolt it. Maybe there is another matchup that I am missing, but for the moment its out of the board. Pithing needle has been great vs jund, u/w control, and thopter foundry, so I'm likely keeping this in. Wear//tear feels necessary, but I haven't been boarding it in too often.
Post board games I've found much harder, as GY hate + plague engineer tends to punish this deck pretty hard, although its not completely game ending. I'm thinking of putting a somewhat transformative sideboard in where I rely less on the graveyard post board (likely - unearth and smiting helix post board). Considering rabblemaster + something else for this slot, but I'm not sure what. I wish the deck had an efficient 1-2 mana threat (besides y.p.) that could be brought in (or main boarded).
Seeing how that deck plays and the power of prowess on tokens and on mentor makes me feel that we should go all in on an unearth mardu mentor build. I think that faithless looting in mardu colors would be better than the pro to having snap in esper colors. Having skelemental in our colors is also something that shouldnt be over looked. Not to mention K-command. Mardu mentor could be a very powerful and resiliant deck.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
As for mentors i think its very good. Idk if i would buy them now or wait but i know ive seen them in alot of UW control sideboards as well as a couple mainboard and ive seen many mentor unearth lists in esper colors popping up all over the place. So maybbeee it wouldnt be bad to pick up 2 since that should be about the amount mardu should play in my opinion.
RUAffinityUR
GMono Green StompyG
CEldrazi TronC
URWJeskai GeistWRU
WRBoros BurnRW
BRWMardu PyromancerWRB
4x young pyromancer
4x seasoned pyromancer
2x yawgkmoth, thran physician
sorceries
4x inquisition of kozilek
4x faithless looting
4x lingering souls
2x collective brutality
2x thoughtseize
2x smiting helix
1x dreadbore
instants
3x kolaghan's command
1x kaya's guile
4x lightning bolt
2x fatal push
1x terminate
4x blackcleave cliffs
2x blood crypt
1x godless shrine
1x sacred foundry
4x marsh flats
4x bloodstained mire
2x swamp
2x mountain
4x leyline of the void
2x goblin rabblemaster
2x kambal, consul of allocation
3x molten rain
3x wear//tear
1x bontu's last reckoning
I feel that the deck needs a lot of work before the MCQ on Saturday, sideboard feels awful. I'll probably cut the rabbles and some number of wear/tear for a few copies of celestial purge and a few other cards, probably blood moons. I feel like I have too many 3 cmc spells in the main and not sure what to cut down on.
any help is great
Sideboard wise, you might want to look at ashiok, blood moon, fulminator mage, and plague engineer. You already have 4x leylines, but the ability to fill your graveyard and prevent searching in addition to hitting theirs can be pretty backbreaking. Plague engineer is great in any fair matchup and is almost always a 2 for 1 I’ve found. Fulminator mage I also like more than molten rain. Again both get better when you put unearth in.
Also the profilerate lets you take out multiple bigger threats than x/1’s. Having 4 toughness is huge and the protection from humans is also often relevant. Cards a house in the deck but drawing multiple sucks, and 4 mana is a lot. 2 seems to be the perfect amount.
Round 1 I lost to BW tokens 1-2. Game 1 I mulled to 5 because I couldn't get lands and I feel too far behind. Game 2 I outraced him. Game3 I beleive I mulled to 6 and I fell behind quickly. There wasn't much to this match.
0-1
Round 2 I quickly lose to 5 colour Niv Mizzet reborn. Game 1 I basically didn't bolt the bird and he resolved an early Niv which I couldn't deal with. Game 2 he resolved a turn 2 Wrenn and Sixx, which he top decked and I couldn't deal with. He hit the mana he needed and I couldn't keep up.
0-2, basically dead for top 8 but I wanted to see how I could recover, it actually gets really good from here.
Round 3 I quickly 2-0 storm. Game 1 was a combination of me effectively removing his mana reducers and him not drawing lands to go off without the cost reducers. Game 2 he kept a hand with multiple copies of empty the warrens and he kept having to go off for low numbers just to not die.
1-2, still not in good shape but I tell myself to take it round by round and see what happens
Round 4 I beat Cheerios 2-1. He goes off game 1 and I lose. Game 2 I applied enough pressure to kill him before he could do much. Game 3 he kept a hand with double paradoxical outcome and I run him over
2-2, getting better.
Round 5 I 2-1 Bant infect. Games 1 and 3 I basically kill any creature he has and I win. Him going to 5 cards game 1 helps. Game 2 he gets me with what I can't kill
3-2, winning 3 in a row has me in a great mood so that helped me go further
Round 6 I 2-1 some kind of Dimir prison deck running both 3 mana Lilies, chalice and the Karn, the great creator package. Game 1 I took advantage of him stumbling on lands and I ran him over. Game 2 he has double plague engineer and I can never recover. Game 3 he had several board wipes and ensnaring bridge in hand after I thoughtseized something else important, I believe some kind of walker. Later on I took the bridge. The game plan that game for most of it was just bait the board wipe and not extend into it. I think he got confused and just played stuff that was easy for me to stop
4-2, I'm at a spot where I can prize if I keep winning
Round 7 I very easily crush humans. Game 1 we both mull and he keeps a slow 6 on the play that didn't do much other than a freebooter that he uses to take an unearth instead of discard or removal. Game 2 he mulls to 6 and probably takes more damage than he should before using the deputy of detention I already knew about. He died not long after dropping the deputy
5-2, 27th after 7, with prizing down to top 32. I felt like I could probably draw last round but didn't offer it because my opponent was 35th
Round 8 I got run over by Izzet Phoenix. Game 1 I was close to stabilizing but then he drops Aria of Flame and casts a lot of spells. Game 2 came down to him needing a way to deal the last 2 damage to me and he draws into a second Phoenix
5-3 finish, not bad after an 0-2 start. I finished 36th, so just missed top 32 prizing. an interesting note is that I avoided thopter sword and Hogaak all day, I'm assuming because of my 0-2 start causing me to play people with more losses throughout the day
I'm currently selling my druid combo deck to build this one. I like the idea of playing a little more fair and interactive magic. I also like the way we can swap between a controlling type deck or an aggro deck. Thanks again for your report. Cheers!
very informative report. thanks for the share. It's a good choice not to give up.
Nexus MTG News // Nexus - Magic Art Gallery // MTG Dual Land Color Ratios Analyzer // MTG Card Drawing Odds Calculator
Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I'm not sure if this is a factor but I feel I could have practiced more with this version of the deck
It finished #2 at SCG IQ Modern New Holland and it looks grindy as hell! Just my kind of Midrange deck.
Here is the list for reference:
4 Lightning Skelemental
2 Monastery Mentor
4 Seasoned Pyromancer
2 Young Pyromancer
Lands (20)
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Arid Mesa
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Godless Shrine
2 Marsh Flats
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
4 Faithless Looting
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Smiting Helix
4 Thoughtseize
4 Unearth
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Plague Engineer
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Celestial Purge
2 Wear // Tear
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
2 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
An experienced Titan player will most likely search for a second Titan once the first one resolves, since he knows we'll be trying to outgrind him. We won't even be able to try to disrupt them properly, since they can just keep the Tolarian in hand and we can't discard lands. Than the second one is probably searching for a third one, and the third can search the fourth, so... unless you have 3 or 4 PtE in hand, it'll probably not be enough. You'd probably have a much better chance with Blood Moons. Once the first Titan resolves, if you have no Blood Moon or pressure enough to try to kill your opponent on the swing back, you're pretty much dead.
Hogaak plays a lot of recursive threats and mills a lot of cards. You might remove a Hogaak with a Path, but than you're probably losing to a couple Vengevines, Bloodghasts, Gravecrawlers or even a second Hogaak. Not to mention the possibility of them having a Carrion Feeder and just dodge the PtE. Unless they have a pretty crappy start, I don't think PtE would make much difference.
I do think PtE improves our Phoenix match-up by a good amount though.
RBW
Mardu PyromancerR.I.P.BG The Rock
Commander
W Nahiri, the Lithomancer
First of all you rule - I have always loved your work on primers and this one is really cracker!
Just a query for you all, do we think it's time that we needed an updated version of the primer?
I think many things for the deck have changed including some matchups that on longer exist (KCI being one)
Any support for this idea?
Cheers to you all!
3 Lightning Skelemental
4 Seasoned Pyromancer
4 Young Pyromancer
Spells (29)
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Faithless Looting
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
3 Smiting Helix
3 Path to Exile
2 Thoughtseize
3 Unearth
2 Smuggler's Copter
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Arid Mesa
1 Marsh Flats
2 Blood Crypt
1 Godless Shrine
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Sulfurous Springs
1 Prismatic Vista
2 Sunbaked Canyon
2 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Plague Engineer
2 Pithing Needle
2 Wear // Tear
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Blood Moon
1 Celestial Purge
Even though I vouched for Yawgmoth earlier, the more I think about it the more I think hes a little too slow. I may go back and test putting him back in later, but for the moment hes out.
I had the idea to add 2x Smuggler's Copter a week ago and in testing it has been overperforming. The deck needed a slightly faster clock, and the copter fills the role of an aggressive 2 drop really nicely. It dodges sorcery speed removal which is nice, is easy to crew with tokens/young pyro (only once in ~ 50 games have I not been able to crew it), and the looting is huge in the deck. Feels much better than Yawgmoth.
I added 3x paths instead of fatal pushes/collective brutalities. The copters are a discard outlet, so I don't feel like I need the brutalities anymore, which felt slow and not super impactful. Paths definitely help in the eldrazi, whir, and UR phoenix matchups over fatal push, and I have a feeling they will be better against hogaak, however I have only played 1 of those matchups and it didn't come into play. My gut feeling is that 3x smiting helix + 4x bolt is enough to deal with small stuff, so path is probably the dedicated removal spell of choice for the deck.
Lightning Skelemental feels good, but Im not 100% sold on it. It is great with unearth, but if you pay 3 and they pitch 1-2 useless cards you feel like you've spent one of the more important turns on just 6 damage. I'm going to test it a bit more, but at the moment I haven't decided how good it is. I may test -3 Skelementals +2 Monestary mentor + 1 Yawgmoth (or possibly mainboard rabblemaster). Any input here is appreciated.
I also still need to finalize the manabase + sideboard. I'm temporarily cheating a bit on the lands for budget reasons, but also the change of - Yawgmoth and + Paths makes white more important and black less so (no more double black). Considering changing the sulfurous springs (blackcleave cliffs) for a r/w dual or some more fetches (ideal but don't have atm).
Sideboard-wise the two most impactful cards for me have been blood moon (it often just steals games) and plague engineer (also really good against the deck). I feel like I should keep the 4x leylines, even though I have not run into much hogaak at my lgs (but I expect more at the mcq). Kambal I tested for a while, but felt honestly too slow. Its great vs burn, but not that good vs U/R phoenix (one of the main decks I put it in for). If they play thing in the ice, they often flip it and just push through the life swing, or bolt it. Maybe there is another matchup that I am missing, but for the moment its out of the board. Pithing needle has been great vs jund, u/w control, and thopter foundry, so I'm likely keeping this in. Wear//tear feels necessary, but I haven't been boarding it in too often.
Post board games I've found much harder, as GY hate + plague engineer tends to punish this deck pretty hard, although its not completely game ending. I'm thinking of putting a somewhat transformative sideboard in where I rely less on the graveyard post board (likely - unearth and smiting helix post board). Considering rabblemaster + something else for this slot, but I'm not sure what. I wish the deck had an efficient 1-2 mana threat (besides y.p.) that could be brought in (or main boarded).