Well, I'd strongly recommend siding them out against aggro in the future. Whether it draws you answers or not, more often than not it's just a blocker. And your opponent can always bring you down to the red zone, then not even attack and watch you flip a lethal card off the top if bob is still in play.
Agree on siding them out, and will be siding out lands as well for answers (removal). I never got in the red zone from BOB, instead it was just big creature attacks or burn spells.
Because you get 4 dudes off 1 card, can pitch it to Lily for card advantage and many decks cannot kill the spirit tokens all at once and can only kill 1 at a time which is horribly inefficient, also they stall for 1-4 turns if you're behind and need to catch up. They're also AMAZING with vault of the archangel. Flying is amazing evasion in modern, often your soul tokens will be block by either a birds of paradise or another spirit token.
Lingering Souls is one of the best cards in modern, if you don't understand this, go play Jund, because obviously lightning bolt is 10x better than path to exile, etc *cough*
Here's something I don't really understand. Why are we running Lingering Souls as a 4 of so often in this deck. Yes, LS is a good card, and it's a good card in our colors, but what synergy does it have with our strategy of midrange aggression?
We don't need Souls to carry any pump spells, we're not running Gavony Township so they can't be given buffs, our creatures are more than big enough to block if we need them to...
We have access to so many good options, what are we gaining here that justifies not boarding them out for Smiters, more removal or disruption, a couple Elspeths, etc.
Here's something I don't really understand. Why are we running Lingering Souls as a 4 of so often in this deck. Yes, LS is a good card, and it's a good card in our colors, but what synergy does it have with our strategy of midrange aggression?
We don't need Souls to carry any pump spells, we're not running Gavony Township so they can't be given buffs, our creatures are more than big enough to block if we need them to...
We have access to so many good options, what are we gaining here that justifies not boarding them out for Smiters, more removal or disruption, a couple Elspeths, etc.
Ever play against artifacts? Ornithopter carrying a cranial plating attacking sucks without a flyer to block. Little soul tokens kept me alive to draw removal. Ever wondor Why Jund runs them?
Hey all been testing this deck for a while and just wanted to post some random thoughts. I'm not saying these are cold hard facts, they're just my personal observations.
1) I don't run Knights, I've never found them to be too great so I just replaced them with Smiters. My meta is also really Pod and UWx Geist heavy with no real Tron/Scapeshift presence so the Knight toolbox isn't needed for me.
2) Tidehollow Sculler has been amazing for me. Yes I understand that he usually just eats removal but if it sets them back 1 turn and a removal spell then I'm happy. Also it's a good way to get rid of all the Geists I run into. Despite this I have been testing with Voice in it's place and I still can't decide which I like better.
3) Township has been better for me than Vault. Without Knight, I've started running 2.
4) I tried out Altar's Reap and it can be a decent draw spell when you expect removal to come. If you don't have the money for Bobs and find yourself wanting more cards check it out. That said I don't run them.
5) Stirring Wildwood has been insane for me and I really suggest running them if you are not already.
So yeah thoughts on Voice? Also, this deck topped an MTGO daily recently! W00t!
I don't like to think this deck is about synergy. I think this deck is more about raw power in each individual card. After both hands are gone and boards are empty, who's going to have better top decks? We are. Lingering souls only adds to that.
However, I am willing to hear you out, but my question is, what cards would you want over lingering souls that we aren't already playing? We can always run more abrupt decays, maelstrom pulses, etc. What new cards do you think are going to make this deck more innovative and 'synergize' with the deck more?
Lingering Souls gives 4 dudes with evasion and helps to close out games where we need the evasion to best a gridlock. Lingering Souls also provides great support if we're behind and need to defend. Honestly the only time I have not wanted to see lingering souls is against Pod or Tron, Pod has Izzet Staticaster or Orzhov Pontiff and Tron has Pyroclasm. Otherwise they are great whenever you don't need a specific card for a situation and are great both on the attack and on the defense.
It covers important weak points in the deck, we have no board wipes and can have difficulty staying alive vs a flood of dudes. Covers as a defense against flying, trading Wildwood or spending resources on it solely for defense is not enough in many cases. It gives us greater value than any of our other dudes when trading with big opposing dudes off vault as we would rather pitch one of 4 soul tokens than a deathrite shaman, Bob etc. Especially if it is a big air threat.
In many games without gavony, the soul tokens can apply a strong pressure due to their evasion and resilience to spot removal.
I would also like to address the inclusion of Knight of the Reliquary, she is not solely to fight Tron or Scapeshift, though at times in those matchups she is nice to have. She is a late game resilience against fair decks. Many times Tarmogoyf is not simply enough to beat fair decks from those that try to rush in and kill us fast to those that try to build up and overwhelm us. Knight is a defensive card that can block and then tap to pump by 1-3 p/t (3 by ghost quartering your own land if necessary or mana flooded) or simply to grab Vault of the Archangel to turn the tide of battle, especially against aggressive decks or those that flood the field like Pod.
Knight is slightly less effective vs graveyard hate, but with all our removal plus some discard we can protect her while removing their threats and she can always simply refill the graveyard, often she is more resilient to gy hate than Tarmogoyf.
Loxodon Smiter is best against matchups we already have an edge or skill based mirror matchups where Knight beats Smiter despite not being a free card off Lily.
You really would prefer Timely Reinforcements to Lingering Souls? We're playing an aggro/control deck here, how many times do you actually have fewer creatures than an opponent?
Sure the core of the deck is 12 creatures but have any successful Junk lists ran less than 20? Not that I recall.
Timely could be great in your sideboard against Zoo or the like, but not Affinity. Against them and most of the modern format you want Lingering Souls. Against Birthing Pod Timely does nothing because they will combo off and kill you anyways.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret Cross - Lingering Souls is a format-warping card. Decks all across Legacy/Modern/Standard are splashing black or white respectively just to play it. And it's used in almost every deck that already plays both black and white.
We're talking about hundreds of experiences pros here that all love the card. You're wrong. They're right. Lingering Souls is the card you want. It creates so much value you don't even need it as a 4-of. Many lists run 3x with great success.
what has not been shown is that it's inclusion in Junk is warranted.
Every deck you posted runs 4x Lingering Souls (which btw puts all but 1 of them over the 20 creature count)
Thanks for driving my point home.
If you need me to spell out for you why Timely is good against Zoo but LS is better against Affinity then you should stop acting so familiar with the format.
Dismember - Not nearly as widely used as Lingering Souls. Not nearly as versatile a card. Not nearly as forced into any deck that can run it. Dismember has many replacements that fill the role. Lingering Souls does not.
If you want to use Timely Reinforcements in place of Lingering Souls, by all means go ahead. But it is a bad call. That's the only reason I even interjected here.
It just seems like a silly comparison when, often times, Timely literally does nothing.
If you're brewing some fresh new idea that will utilize TR, great. I'd love to hear some success stories. I loved the card when it was in standard. But please don't question the validity of LS, or its necessity in Junk.
The original "Junk" deck was in INV/ODY standard and was named by the sheer number of random good-stuff cards all being playable in BGW. Modern junk is no different. There's not a lot of synergy in our card interactions but the raw power level of each individual card needs to be very high. Lingering Souls fits the bill perfectly, hence its auto-inclusion in almost every successful Modern deck that already plays both black and white - not to mention the decks splashing just to play it, such as Esper-blade and Lingering Jund. I'm not saying it belongs in Junk because non-Junk decks play it, but the fact that so many decks do should attest it its power level and Junk is about card power.
Goodstuff.deck will only take us so far. Our hand should be relatively healthy as long as we have Dark Confidant, and that contributes to one of our strong suits playing KotR Junk, namely versatility and options.
Although many people mistake it for goodstuff.dec, and you're right, that only gets you so far, this isn't goodstuff.dec, regardless of the price tag. The synergy here, or more appropriately, the strategy, is control the board and deplete your opponent's hand whilst sticking very relevant threats. It's a very loose strategy compared to others, but it is what the deck does in most cases. That said, efficiency is a huge issue here since you are usually trying to pull ahead while keeping your opponent down at the same time. Where as other decks either get in as fast as they can, or grind it out until they have the upper hand. This deck needs to be able to do both, that said:
These cards are not necessarily appropriate replacements for lingering souls main board. They're both really great cards with potent effects, but they are not as versatile as lingering souls. Against combo and aggro, life from the loam is nearly useless, as blowing up their lands usually won't slow them down enough to kill you, especially after you've spent mana to cast it. Same case with elspeth, she's just too slow against aggro and combo. She's an extremely potent threat on her own, but against combo and aggro, by the time you get to cast her, if you do cast her, chances are you will not be in a good situation. Lingering souls puts blockers on the field sooner than elspeth, and can start the beat down a turn sooner as well against combo. Of course, it is debatable that sometimes elspeth can come into play, mighty leap your tarmogoyf or KotR and kill your opponent a lot faster than lingering souls can, but by herself, she will not kill anyone as quickly as lingering souls.
I do, however, think both cards are amazing against control and other decks similar to this one (midrange) because grinding out games with life from the loam, or slamming an elspeth when they're out of answers is a really good thing to do.
Honestly if Kotr had flying and could be cast from the graveyard I would say yeah we don't really need lingering souls, but our deck loses to... You guessed it, Lingering Souls if we don't play our own. (You could possibly justify not having this weakness if you played 4 Maelstrom Pulse mainboard).
I feel like most people want to cut lingering souls mainly because the card is not exciting, however it is a part of the Junk Core and Spirit Jund put up way more results than Jund when it was popular because Lingering Souls was very much worth the splash.
Timely Reinforcements is a decent sideboard card for the deck if your meta is filled with Domain Zoo, most aggro decks are easily kept in check by a skilled pilot of Junk.
I am thinking of creating a new primer as this one is out of date, I plan to make it professionally and as unbiased as possible and explain the pros and cons of all realistic card choices. If anyone wants to help out/participate, Skype me (xhavoc_reaperx) or PM me here and we can exchange email addresses or w/e.
A big part of the deck I recently learned is to maintain a solid manabase, aim for a minimum of 16 possible black sources and 14 of Green and White. I am probably moving to 10 fetchlands with my KOTR build as well (2x Misty Rainforest). I moved to 4x Swamp for now, (After playtesting I have found Twilight Mire to be greedy as well as a huge headache spacing mana out between my turn and my opponent's turn. Still reading through a recent deckbuilding book and will likely discover more relevations than just the manabase.
I moved to 4x Swamp for now, (After playtesting I have found Twilight Mire to be greedy as well as a huge headache spacing mana out between my turn and my opponent's turn. Still reading through a recent deckbuilding book and will likely discover more relevations than just the manabase.
Glad I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion, I sleeved up the list you posted earlier in the thread and very quickly wanted to drop the Twilight Mires. Perhaps there is a better option as opposed to just -3 Mire +3 Swamp? I'm personally considering Cavern of Souls as my local meta has a good deal of UWR, and URx combo decks, so maybe making sure that Goyf hits the board will prove useful enough (or human to push through Bob and KotR.) I dunno, testing to follow.
Glad I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion, I sleeved up the list you posted earlier in the thread and very quickly wanted to drop the Twilight Mires. Perhaps there is a better option as opposed to just -3 Mire +3 Swamp? I'm personally considering Cavern of Souls as my local meta has a good deal of UWR, and URx combo decks, so maybe making sure that Goyf hits the board will prove useful enough (or human to push through Bob and KotR.) I dunno, testing to follow.
Cavern is unnecessary, only 2 dudes share a type and its not good for decay, pulse or seize. Btw URx has only one game plan against us: proceed to scoop phase.
What are our best sideboard options to deal with affinity?
Stony Silence and play 4 mainboard spells that destroy Cranial Plating, They can often play through a stony silence, but if you get Vault out with Stony Silence they're toast.
Anyone else feel that the title of this thread is outdated and frankly corny considering the card does not make most lists at this point.
Also a link to my decklist that I keep up to date:
Any suggestions for my 2 empty sideboard spots are appreciated, I am playing 2 decays currently as filler but I am not really worried about my Twin matchup and my Affinity matchup that much, maybe I'll put Timely in there for Zoo.
I was hoping to build a loam list with a playset of Knight of the Reliquary and Goyf. Anybody have a list for such a beast?
I know, Knight of the Reliquary isn't as good as she used to be, yadda yadda. If I'm going to play somewhere ultra-competitive, I'll worry about that, but at my FNM, she works.I don't think I ever see oozes or deathrites there.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Collecting Maw of the Mire! Feel free to send me any you have, so long as they're in reasonable condition.
I was hoping to build a loam list with a playset of Knight of the Reliquary and Goyf. Anybody have a list for such a beast?
I know, Knight of the Reliquary isn't as good as she used to be, yadda yadda. If I'm going to play somewhere ultra-competitive, I'll worry about that, but at my FNM, she works.I don't think I ever see oozes or deathrites there.
She is better than she used to be with the release of Vault, I play 4 Discard, 8 Removal, 4 Lily, 4 MB DRS, and 3 SB Ooze; Knight has great synergy with DRS sac into a fetch effectively fueling a DRS if you need to as well as pumping by at least 1. An opponent needs 2 DRS to hold a knight down. Scavenging Ooze is annoying in a vacuum vs your Knight, but you don't play in vacuums, they have to spend a lot of mana to keep Knight down and they're Ooze doesn't grow off eating land and it does not interact with the fact that you can kill the Ooze with the knight via search and activate Vault.
Agree on siding them out, and will be siding out lands as well for answers (removal). I never got in the red zone from BOB, instead it was just big creature attacks or burn spells.
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
Or Gruul Zoo, GW Aggro, I have no idea which deck is better.
EDH: Xenagos, God of Revels.
Lingering Souls is one of the best cards in modern, if you don't understand this, go play Jund, because obviously lightning bolt is 10x better than path to exile, etc *cough*
Modern - The Rock
My List Constantly Updated
Ever play against artifacts? Ornithopter carrying a cranial plating attacking sucks without a flyer to block. Little soul tokens kept me alive to draw removal. Ever wondor Why Jund runs them?
Multiplayer Decks- Memnarch - Animar, Soul of Elements - Zur, the Enchanter - Atraxa, Praetors' Voice - Food Chain Tazri - Teysa Karlov
Modern BUMill and Bant Spirits.
Thank you Xenphire for the signature!
1) I don't run Knights, I've never found them to be too great so I just replaced them with Smiters. My meta is also really Pod and UWx Geist heavy with no real Tron/Scapeshift presence so the Knight toolbox isn't needed for me.
2) Tidehollow Sculler has been amazing for me. Yes I understand that he usually just eats removal but if it sets them back 1 turn and a removal spell then I'm happy. Also it's a good way to get rid of all the Geists I run into. Despite this I have been testing with Voice in it's place and I still can't decide which I like better.
3) Township has been better for me than Vault. Without Knight, I've started running 2.
4) I tried out Altar's Reap and it can be a decent draw spell when you expect removal to come. If you don't have the money for Bobs and find yourself wanting more cards check it out. That said I don't run them.
5) Stirring Wildwood has been insane for me and I really suggest running them if you are not already.
So yeah thoughts on Voice? Also, this deck topped an MTGO daily recently! W00t!
EDIT: Blue splash for Geist anyone?
RIP Eggs
My Trade Thread
However, I am willing to hear you out, but my question is, what cards would you want over lingering souls that we aren't already playing? We can always run more abrupt decays, maelstrom pulses, etc. What new cards do you think are going to make this deck more innovative and 'synergize' with the deck more?
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
It covers important weak points in the deck, we have no board wipes and can have difficulty staying alive vs a flood of dudes. Covers as a defense against flying, trading Wildwood or spending resources on it solely for defense is not enough in many cases. It gives us greater value than any of our other dudes when trading with big opposing dudes off vault as we would rather pitch one of 4 soul tokens than a deathrite shaman, Bob etc. Especially if it is a big air threat.
In many games without gavony, the soul tokens can apply a strong pressure due to their evasion and resilience to spot removal.
I would also like to address the inclusion of Knight of the Reliquary, she is not solely to fight Tron or Scapeshift, though at times in those matchups she is nice to have. She is a late game resilience against fair decks. Many times Tarmogoyf is not simply enough to beat fair decks from those that try to rush in and kill us fast to those that try to build up and overwhelm us. Knight is a defensive card that can block and then tap to pump by 1-3 p/t (3 by ghost quartering your own land if necessary or mana flooded) or simply to grab Vault of the Archangel to turn the tide of battle, especially against aggressive decks or those that flood the field like Pod.
Knight is slightly less effective vs graveyard hate, but with all our removal plus some discard we can protect her while removing their threats and she can always simply refill the graveyard, often she is more resilient to gy hate than Tarmogoyf.
Loxodon Smiter is best against matchups we already have an edge or skill based mirror matchups where Knight beats Smiter despite not being a free card off Lily.
Modern - The Rock
My List Constantly Updated
RIP Eggs
My Trade Thread
Timely could be great in your sideboard against Zoo or the like, but not Affinity. Against them and most of the modern format you want Lingering Souls. Against Birthing Pod Timely does nothing because they will combo off and kill you anyways.
Allow me to let you in on a little secret Cross - Lingering Souls is a format-warping card. Decks all across Legacy/Modern/Standard are splashing black or white respectively just to play it. And it's used in almost every deck that already plays both black and white.
We're talking about hundreds of experiences pros here that all love the card. You're wrong. They're right. Lingering Souls is the card you want. It creates so much value you don't even need it as a 4-of. Many lists run 3x with great success.
Draft My Cube!
Every deck you posted runs 4x Lingering Souls (which btw puts all but 1 of them over the 20 creature count)
Thanks for driving my point home.
If you need me to spell out for you why Timely is good against Zoo but LS is better against Affinity then you should stop acting so familiar with the format.
Dismember - Not nearly as widely used as Lingering Souls. Not nearly as versatile a card. Not nearly as forced into any deck that can run it. Dismember has many replacements that fill the role. Lingering Souls does not.
If you want to use Timely Reinforcements in place of Lingering Souls, by all means go ahead. But it is a bad call. That's the only reason I even interjected here.
Draft My Cube!
If you're brewing some fresh new idea that will utilize TR, great. I'd love to hear some success stories. I loved the card when it was in standard. But please don't question the validity of LS, or its necessity in Junk.
The original "Junk" deck was in INV/ODY standard and was named by the sheer number of random good-stuff cards all being playable in BGW. Modern junk is no different. There's not a lot of synergy in our card interactions but the raw power level of each individual card needs to be very high. Lingering Souls fits the bill perfectly, hence its auto-inclusion in almost every successful Modern deck that already plays both black and white - not to mention the decks splashing just to play it, such as Esper-blade and Lingering Jund. I'm not saying it belongs in Junk because non-Junk decks play it, but the fact that so many decks do should attest it its power level and Junk is about card power.
Draft My Cube!
Although many people mistake it for goodstuff.dec, and you're right, that only gets you so far, this isn't goodstuff.dec, regardless of the price tag. The synergy here, or more appropriately, the strategy, is control the board and deplete your opponent's hand whilst sticking very relevant threats. It's a very loose strategy compared to others, but it is what the deck does in most cases. That said, efficiency is a huge issue here since you are usually trying to pull ahead while keeping your opponent down at the same time. Where as other decks either get in as fast as they can, or grind it out until they have the upper hand. This deck needs to be able to do both, that said:
These cards are not necessarily appropriate replacements for lingering souls main board. They're both really great cards with potent effects, but they are not as versatile as lingering souls. Against combo and aggro, life from the loam is nearly useless, as blowing up their lands usually won't slow them down enough to kill you, especially after you've spent mana to cast it. Same case with elspeth, she's just too slow against aggro and combo. She's an extremely potent threat on her own, but against combo and aggro, by the time you get to cast her, if you do cast her, chances are you will not be in a good situation. Lingering souls puts blockers on the field sooner than elspeth, and can start the beat down a turn sooner as well against combo. Of course, it is debatable that sometimes elspeth can come into play, mighty leap your tarmogoyf or KotR and kill your opponent a lot faster than lingering souls can, but by herself, she will not kill anyone as quickly as lingering souls.
I do, however, think both cards are amazing against control and other decks similar to this one (midrange) because grinding out games with life from the loam, or slamming an elspeth when they're out of answers is a really good thing to do.
Modern Junk Primer
Legacy ANT Primer
L1 Judge
I feel like most people want to cut lingering souls mainly because the card is not exciting, however it is a part of the Junk Core and Spirit Jund put up way more results than Jund when it was popular because Lingering Souls was very much worth the splash.
Timely Reinforcements is a decent sideboard card for the deck if your meta is filled with Domain Zoo, most aggro decks are easily kept in check by a skilled pilot of Junk.
I am thinking of creating a new primer as this one is out of date, I plan to make it professionally and as unbiased as possible and explain the pros and cons of all realistic card choices. If anyone wants to help out/participate, Skype me (xhavoc_reaperx) or PM me here and we can exchange email addresses or w/e.
A big part of the deck I recently learned is to maintain a solid manabase, aim for a minimum of 16 possible black sources and 14 of Green and White. I am probably moving to 10 fetchlands with my KOTR build as well (2x Misty Rainforest). I moved to 4x Swamp for now, (After playtesting I have found Twilight Mire to be greedy as well as a huge headache spacing mana out between my turn and my opponent's turn. Still reading through a recent deckbuilding book and will likely discover more relevations than just the manabase.
Modern - The Rock
My List Constantly Updated
Glad I'm not the only one who came to this conclusion, I sleeved up the list you posted earlier in the thread and very quickly wanted to drop the Twilight Mires. Perhaps there is a better option as opposed to just -3 Mire +3 Swamp? I'm personally considering Cavern of Souls as my local meta has a good deal of UWR, and URx combo decks, so maybe making sure that Goyf hits the board will prove useful enough (or human to push through Bob and KotR.) I dunno, testing to follow.
Cavern is unnecessary, only 2 dudes share a type and its not good for decay, pulse or seize. Btw URx has only one game plan against us: proceed to scoop phase.
Modern - The Rock
My List Constantly Updated
Stony Silence and play 4 mainboard spells that destroy Cranial Plating, They can often play through a stony silence, but if you get Vault out with Stony Silence they're toast.
Anyone else feel that the title of this thread is outdated and frankly corny considering the card does not make most lists at this point.
Also a link to my decklist that I keep up to date:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/the-rock-17-06-13-1/
Any suggestions for my 2 empty sideboard spots are appreciated, I am playing 2 decays currently as filler but I am not really worried about my Twin matchup and my Affinity matchup that much, maybe I'll put Timely in there for Zoo.
Modern - The Rock
My List Constantly Updated
I know, Knight of the Reliquary isn't as good as she used to be, yadda yadda. If I'm going to play somewhere ultra-competitive, I'll worry about that, but at my FNM, she works.I don't think I ever see oozes or deathrites there.
She is better than she used to be with the release of Vault, I play 4 Discard, 8 Removal, 4 Lily, 4 MB DRS, and 3 SB Ooze; Knight has great synergy with DRS sac into a fetch effectively fueling a DRS if you need to as well as pumping by at least 1. An opponent needs 2 DRS to hold a knight down. Scavenging Ooze is annoying in a vacuum vs your Knight, but you don't play in vacuums, they have to spend a lot of mana to keep Knight down and they're Ooze doesn't grow off eating land and it does not interact with the fact that you can kill the Ooze with the knight via search and activate Vault.
Modern - The Rock
My List Constantly Updated