Just two cents from Japan, as usual. But, wouldn't it be worth it to side in a non-creature suite against twin? I know Mr. Sullano basically denied this, but I thought thoughtseizes, decays and Dismembers were quite the powerhouse against them. I only say this because that seems to be the line that many of the successful Japanese Elves players seem to be doing. They, for some reason, always side in spells and trade the combo-esque ness of the deck into more of a beatdown/midrange deck with Shamans, Chameleon Collosus and the like. I am not trying to contradict Mr. Sullano. If he says that Horizon Canopy is worth it, it is worth it. But, perhaps going deeper into black gives us some game against Twin. My humble experience has been that I don't particularly struggle with Twin, but that is my small sample size.
Currently my list still plays the 4x Chord of Calling list. I personally just love the advantage of it game one. Game two sometimes Chords are hard to cast in my opinion. Definitely keeping Leads in sideboard, Card is busted when you get lucky.
Included Abrupt Decay for Twin, Jund, and Tron.
Twin - Yes is stops the combo, but if your not threaten by the combo, it hits every nonBlack creature. Clears the way for Colossus. Also Grim Lavamancer.
Jund - Not needed for jund but in a game of value, I think in order to keep up early, killing Dark Confidant, Liliana, and Goyfs are huge. Yeah dismember takes care of 2 out of 3 and more but that and burn are the two matches where you need to preserve as much life as possible.
Tron - I get a lot of practice against tron. Unless they get a nut hand, Which they do a lot lol. If you can just destroy their early artifacts, most times their hands are just terrible. Using Artifacts for specific colors and to fetch specific lands makes their starting hand, do-able. Take it away and game two is yours.
Merfolk - Saw someone posted about merfolk early. Just want to make it clear. Elves have a huge advantage game one. Between Collected Company and Heritage Druid, we are just faster and scarier. Game two we should respect Hibernation but also Spreading Seas. They are using Artifacts and Enchantments to excel themself and slow us down. I personaly being in some spot removal like dismember or abrupt Decay. If you can remove 1-2 lords from their board or one of their early Aethervials, Their overall game is hilarious compared to us.
Also Sullano mentioned having the Fink/Seer/Outcast combo is not something worth putting together. Do you think is still something worth having in the sideboard? Or giving the chance, different cards would have been chosen?
Back and forth with myself on this. 18 or 19 lands. Would love everyones opinion. hate being flooded, hate being choked.
Fetches and Shocks or painless lands? Thin the deck or keeping a steady-ish flow of lands?
Should we side graveyard hate like Relic of Progenitus to keep up with Delve decks?
Just two cents from Japan, as usual. But, wouldn't it be worth it to side in a non-creature suite against twin? I know Mr. Sullano basically denied this, but I thought thoughtseizes, decays and Dismembers were quite the powerhouse against them. I only say this because that seems to be the line that many of the successful Japanese Elves players seem to be doing. They, for some reason, always side in spells and trade the combo-esque ness of the deck into more of a beatdown/midrange deck with Shamans, Chameleon Collosus and the like. I am not trying to contradict Mr. Sullano. If he says that Horizon Canopy is worth it, it is worth it. But, perhaps going deeper into black gives us some game against Twin. My humble experience has been that I don't particularly struggle with Twin, but that is my small sample size.
I agree with what your saying. Not to disagree with anyone else. As i said before, Abrupt are a good post board swap with Chords in my option. Bullet for Bullet. Thoughtseize I still don't agree with. Tested them many times on and off. I just think game two, we should stay the reactive player and thoughtseize is not that. Also I personally would prefer Duress.
In my experience with testing the deck. Sometimes you just don't get a black source. 18 lands, 8 sources.
4 Cavern, 3 Nykthos, 4 Gilt-Leaf, 4 Overgrown Tombs and 3 Basic Forest.
Fetches solves this problem but you get yourself in this spot were you turn 1, fetch shock to 17 and never draw a land again.
I as thinking thoughtseizes not only for combo, but for sweepers that twin brings in. Tsing the turn before you win to make sure all your creatures stay alive for the swing seems valueable. Also, can't be dispelled.
I don't really like the card. But anyone try Beast Within against Amulet Bloom. Just because you could destroy the titan inresponce to enter the battlefield triggers. Not sure besides spellskite what we can do to keep up in this match.
I went full deckswap just to try it out, and oooooh boy it was a firecracker.
Match 1: UR Twin
Game 1 went poorly as I get my T1 dork bolted, and an Electrolyze slows me down enough to allow him to Twin off. Game 2 once again saw my dork get bolted T1, but I recovered well with a Skite and took the game over with multiple Archdruids and an Ezuri making 19 damage spread over 2 dudes. Game 3, I dump my hand and after digging a bunch, a Coco into double Visionary draws me into a Dismember. He feels pressured to go off, and I snap Dismember and kill him the next turn.
SB:
-4 Dwynen's Elite, -3 Lead the Stampede
+3 Chord of Calling, +2 Spellskite, +1 Burrenton Forge-Tender, +1 Dismember
2-1
1-0
Match 2: Big Zoo
A pretty non-descript match. He mulls to 5 both games and I crush him handily. However, I do have to share a Lead flip: 2 x Archdruid, Ezuri, Dwynen's. Not bad.
SB: N/A
2-0
2-0
Match 3: Merfolk
Game 1, my notepad just says vomit. However, I do recall it was a double Coco + double Lead game. Game 2 I struggle to deal with Master of Waves, and when the second resolves with 11 3/2 Elementals on the board I promptly scoop after I can't punch through that many dudes. Game 3, he plays Lord of Atlantis, and I play Mirror Entity the next turn, and I kill him with my pumped Islandwalking Merfolk-Elf-Goblin-Eldrazi-Elemental-Kithkin-Rebels over the next 2 turns.
SB:
-2 Dorks
+1 Stony Silence, +1 Dismember
2-1
3-0
Match 4: Grixis Delver
Game 1, T1 Dork into T2 Archdruid lets me empty my hand, but he recovers with a T2 Tasigur, and several Gurmags. He chips me down to 2, and I have one draw phase to draw an Ezuri or a Mirror Entity, as I have one extra attacker and a bunch of mana. I draw Mirror Entity like a professional and kill him after he doesn't have the Bolt to stop me. Game 2 was an abject grind. I get EE'd on one for eight elves but its not enough after I resolve 3 Leads and a Messenger and absolutely crush him under the weight of dudes with half my deck in my graveyard.
Walked away with a nifty $80 store credit. Pretty impressed with Lead overall as a main deck card, and the Messengers were overperforming. At times, 4 mana felt awkward but the fact that it can also hit more copies of itself, and can be hit by Lead was impressive overall.
Just two cents from Japan, as usual. But, wouldn't it be worth it to side in a non-creature suite against twin? I know Mr. Sullano basically denied this, but I thought thoughtseizes, decays and Dismembers were quite the powerhouse against them. I only say this because that seems to be the line that many of the successful Japanese Elves players seem to be doing. They, for some reason, always side in spells and trade the combo-esque ness of the deck into more of a beatdown/midrange deck with Shamans, Chameleon Collosus and the like. I am not trying to contradict Mr. Sullano. If he says that Horizon Canopy is worth it, it is worth it. But, perhaps going deeper into black gives us some game against Twin. My humble experience has been that I don't particularly struggle with Twin, but that is my small sample size.
This has been my experience as well - I have an unusual sideboard that I'm still tweaking in a GB build, but it includes Krossan Grip, Abrupt Decay, Dismember, and a one of Stain the Mind. There's nothing more fun than seeing a Splinter Twin player once you name Splinter Twin on a Stain, and they realise they basically have nothing going on for the rest of the match.
Twin isn't the BIGGEST threat to us, but it can reliably get a T4 win, with enough removal/countermagic to slow us down. It's not a whitewash, but it's close enough for me to enjoy putting things in to pull it apart.
This is the list i'm going to start with and take it from here. Pretty generic I know.
I think fetches helps alot with hitting the black mana consistently and it potentially thins your deck for Company/Lead.But it's worse when you keep shuffling the bottomed cards or your library back in the deck. So i think i'll end up just maindecking chord for that sole reason.
Cpt Cameo, you should drop 4 fetches for 4 Gilt Leaf Palace and 2 Overgrown Tombs for 2 forests. Sideboard would benefit from some graveyard hate. Multiple Choke isn't great since the effects are non-stacking.
Because for Surgical Extraction to work, they need to have a copy in their graveyard. You bring in Stain the Mind game 2, convoke it out, and you can cast it as soon as it comes up.
Surgical Extraction would only work if you'd managed to make them discard the first one, or if they'd gone for the combo, and you'd managed to stop it with a kill spell. Stain the Mind circumvents that.
I love that this deck is so open-ended build-wise, but part of me wishes we were closer to consensus so those of you with more experience could give the rest of us a detailed SB plan and more concrete advice on handling different MUs. Not that NewModern, MrBurp, Andrew, and others haven't done this; there's just always a "depends on what you play" qualifier attached.
Here's what I've gathered from this forum about when Lead is better than Chord and vice-versa. The SB bullets we tend to Chord for is in parenthesis. Hoping y'all will tell me what I'm wrong about oroverlooking, and maybe shed some light on what to side out:
Lists where you want Chord post-board:
Twin (Rec Sage, Skite, Essence Warden(?))
Bogles (Skite, Rec Sage)
Burn (Finks, Skite, E Warden, Forge-Tender)
Scapeshift (Skite, Forge-Tender for Anger)
Infect (Skite, Melira)
Tron (Forge-Tender. If I'm on the play, I usually stay small w/Lead and hope they stumble and I have a turn 4 or 5 kill. Doubt this is optimal)
Living End/Ad Nauseam (Forge-Tender for AN, tears and rage for LI)
Lead stays/comes in for:
Junk and Jund
Non-Burn Zoo
Mirror/other CoCo builds (not sure here)
Affinity (very unsure-maybe Chord for Skite?)
Bloom (maybe Chord for Forge-Tender?)
Merfolk
Grixis/UWx Control
Am I on the right track here? As you can see, there are a few major decks that I'm unsure about, and I imagine I got some others wrong. Any advice on this, or on what to side out for our bullets would be appreciated. We can use Andrews list as a reference point- folks who MB Chord and SB Lead would be able to glean something from it as well. Hope I'm not sidetracking or taking us in too much of a newb-centric direction.
Yes, meant Lead there. Edited to fix. And thanks for the reply- was hoping to be general enough to help out other newer players and not just ramble on about my own experiences with the deck. That said, you probably just won me some matches by reminding me to bring in Revoker for Ugin, so thanks.
Another report from Japan. Hareruya, one of our biggest and major stores (akin to SCG in the USA), does a major tournament series called God of ... (insert format). They just did God of Modern with 293 who attended including gold and platinum level pros. Elves made top 8 with a list that is similar to the list that has been floating around here in Japan. No Nettle Sentinel, only one Horizon Canopy and a plethora of black spell sideboards. This list is really a good example of what we have been discussing. Interesting sideboard tech includes Black Pact and Thoughtseizes.
My testing has yielded good results for Nettle Sentinels, but maybe there is a case for dropping them. This is the third time this type of list (same guy twice) has made top eight in a major (over 200 player) event and with the Grand Prix top 16, Shaman of the Pack seems to be here to stay.
I may be biased from my testing, but I really do like the spells-in-the-sideboard direction the Japanese lists take. I feel that taking wisdom from the Legacy lists (our older cousin), going midrange with our deck, including heavy hitters like Chameleon Colossus and slowing them down, hitting with Shamans seems like a good take. Though the list mentioned does not have Chameleon Colossus.
I don't think this is the only way to take, not in the least. It is "a" way to take and it seems to be working here in Japan.
Problem is it doesn't cast Chord or Collected Company. Can't afford to attribute already limited land drops to lands that can't cast key spells in our deck.
Welcome to the Palace, hope you enjoy your stay ;).
As for the list, the creature core looks fine, and so does the spellsuite. Only thing I would suggest are mana base fixes. I'd probably get rid of the Razorverge Thickets, and add a Cavern and the last Palace. Its much more important for you to hit Black instead of White, and with fetches you can grab the 1 of Temple Garden at any point.
As for the sideboard, generally speaking theres only one instance where you don't want to have a toolbox, and thats Burn. Generally people pick between running 3 Finks or 3 Essence Wardens in the board. Other then that, seems like a good list.
So I'm thinking of building elves after loving chording for Shaman of the Pack until last rotation, and making the mistake of building another modern deck that I'm not enjoying (tron), but I'm not sure what the final build should look like. I definitely want green and black for Shaman, but I like the white splash for the toolbox abilities - don't think I'm making great use of it here though. Is it worth it to go full on junk? And is there a better way to structure the land base?
Also any advice on the decklist in general and how to make it as strong as possible would be great.
If you haven't yet, check out Andrew Sullano's list from the recent Grand Prix in Pittsburgh. His success has steered the conversation for the last few weeks, and he was nice enough to answer some questions here. Definitely worth scrolling back through the posts since Nov. 22.
The tl;dr version is- Lead the Stampede MB, with Chord and toolbox creatures sided in once we know our opponent's deck and the specific answers we need. Junk colors don't hurt us. Lots of folks still play the Chord toolbox main, and your list looks pretty standard (and good). I'm not experienced enough to critique your manabase other than to say that I've never regretted running a set of Gilt-Leafs.
Seems like all the one-ofs in your board would make you very reliant on Chord to find your answers, which is more feasible in some MUs than others. Would like to know how much of a liability it is once you've done some testing. Seems like a great way to test out your sb options in any case.
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BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
Included Abrupt Decay for Twin, Jund, and Tron.
Twin - Yes is stops the combo, but if your not threaten by the combo, it hits every nonBlack creature. Clears the way for Colossus. Also Grim Lavamancer.
Jund - Not needed for jund but in a game of value, I think in order to keep up early, killing Dark Confidant, Liliana, and Goyfs are huge. Yeah dismember takes care of 2 out of 3 and more but that and burn are the two matches where you need to preserve as much life as possible.
Tron - I get a lot of practice against tron. Unless they get a nut hand, Which they do a lot lol. If you can just destroy their early artifacts, most times their hands are just terrible. Using Artifacts for specific colors and to fetch specific lands makes their starting hand, do-able. Take it away and game two is yours.
Merfolk - Saw someone posted about merfolk early. Just want to make it clear. Elves have a huge advantage game one. Between Collected Company and Heritage Druid, we are just faster and scarier. Game two we should respect Hibernation but also Spreading Seas. They are using Artifacts and Enchantments to excel themself and slow us down. I personaly being in some spot removal like dismember or abrupt Decay. If you can remove 1-2 lords from their board or one of their early Aethervials, Their overall game is hilarious compared to us.
Also Sullano mentioned having the Fink/Seer/Outcast combo is not something worth putting together. Do you think is still something worth having in the sideboard? Or giving the chance, different cards would have been chosen?
Back and forth with myself on this. 18 or 19 lands. Would love everyones opinion. hate being flooded, hate being choked.
Fetches and Shocks or painless lands? Thin the deck or keeping a steady-ish flow of lands?
Should we side graveyard hate like Relic of Progenitus to keep up with Delve decks?
Can I please have Deathrite Planeswalker back?
Edit: Posted while I typed my reply
I agree with what your saying. Not to disagree with anyone else. As i said before, Abrupt are a good post board swap with Chords in my option. Bullet for Bullet. Thoughtseize I still don't agree with. Tested them many times on and off. I just think game two, we should stay the reactive player and thoughtseize is not that. Also I personally would prefer Duress.
In my experience with testing the deck. Sometimes you just don't get a black source. 18 lands, 8 sources.
4 Cavern, 3 Nykthos, 4 Gilt-Leaf, 4 Overgrown Tombs and 3 Basic Forest.
Fetches solves this problem but you get yourself in this spot were you turn 1, fetch shock to 17 and never draw a land again.
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
3x Lead the Stampede
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Chameleon Colossus
2x Golgari Charm
1x Dismember
1x Fracturing Gust
What about Rhys the exiled?
Im looking for other options to play against burn, besides the finks, where its good, but if burn has a amazing draw, its not enough!
RBW Mardu Pyro
X Eldrazi
Pauper:
X Affinity
G Stompy
5 Forest
4 Horizon Canopy
4 Razorverge Thicket
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Pendlehaven
//Creatures
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
3 Sylvan Messenger
1 Mirror Entity
4 Collected Company
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Chord of Calling
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Spellskite
1 Burrenton Forge-Tender
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
1 Dismember
1 Chameleon Colossus
I went full deckswap just to try it out, and oooooh boy it was a firecracker.
Match 1: UR Twin
Game 1 went poorly as I get my T1 dork bolted, and an Electrolyze slows me down enough to allow him to Twin off. Game 2 once again saw my dork get bolted T1, but I recovered well with a Skite and took the game over with multiple Archdruids and an Ezuri making 19 damage spread over 2 dudes. Game 3, I dump my hand and after digging a bunch, a Coco into double Visionary draws me into a Dismember. He feels pressured to go off, and I snap Dismember and kill him the next turn.
SB:
-4 Dwynen's Elite, -3 Lead the Stampede
+3 Chord of Calling, +2 Spellskite, +1 Burrenton Forge-Tender, +1 Dismember
2-1
1-0
Match 2: Big Zoo
A pretty non-descript match. He mulls to 5 both games and I crush him handily. However, I do have to share a Lead flip: 2 x Archdruid, Ezuri, Dwynen's. Not bad.
SB: N/A
2-0
2-0
Match 3: Merfolk
Game 1, my notepad just says vomit. However, I do recall it was a double Coco + double Lead game. Game 2 I struggle to deal with Master of Waves, and when the second resolves with 11 3/2 Elementals on the board I promptly scoop after I can't punch through that many dudes. Game 3, he plays Lord of Atlantis, and I play Mirror Entity the next turn, and I kill him with my pumped Islandwalking Merfolk-Elf-Goblin-Eldrazi-Elemental-Kithkin-Rebels over the next 2 turns.
SB:
-2 Dorks
+1 Stony Silence, +1 Dismember
2-1
3-0
Match 4: Grixis Delver
Game 1, T1 Dork into T2 Archdruid lets me empty my hand, but he recovers with a T2 Tasigur, and several Gurmags. He chips me down to 2, and I have one draw phase to draw an Ezuri or a Mirror Entity, as I have one extra attacker and a bunch of mana. I draw Mirror Entity like a professional and kill him after he doesn't have the Bolt to stop me. Game 2 was an abject grind. I get EE'd on one for eight elves but its not enough after I resolve 3 Leads and a Messenger and absolutely crush him under the weight of dudes with half my deck in my graveyard.
SB:
-4 Dwynen's Elite
+1 Rest in Peace, +1 Burrenton Forge-Tender, +1 Chameleon Colossus, +1 Dismember
2-0
4-0
Walked away with a nifty $80 store credit. Pretty impressed with Lead overall as a main deck card, and the Messengers were overperforming. At times, 4 mana felt awkward but the fact that it can also hit more copies of itself, and can be hit by Lead was impressive overall.
This has been my experience as well - I have an unusual sideboard that I'm still tweaking in a GB build, but it includes Krossan Grip, Abrupt Decay, Dismember, and a one of Stain the Mind. There's nothing more fun than seeing a Splinter Twin player once you name Splinter Twin on a Stain, and they realise they basically have nothing going on for the rest of the match.
Twin isn't the BIGGEST threat to us, but it can reliably get a T4 win, with enough removal/countermagic to slow us down. It's not a whitewash, but it's close enough for me to enjoy putting things in to pull it apart.
I think fetches helps alot with hitting the black mana consistently and it potentially thins your deck for Company/Lead.But it's worse when you keep shuffling the bottomed cards or your library back in the deck. So i think i'll end up just maindecking chord for that sole reason.
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Forest
3 Overgrown Tomb
4 Cavern of Souls
1 Pendelhaven
//Creatures
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Nettle Sentinel
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Elvish Archdruid
2 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
4 Shaman of the Pack
4 Collected Company
3 Lead the Stampede
3 Chord of Calling
1 Reclamation Sage
2 Spellskite
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
2 Chameleon Colossus
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Choke
Because for Surgical Extraction to work, they need to have a copy in their graveyard. You bring in Stain the Mind game 2, convoke it out, and you can cast it as soon as it comes up.
Surgical Extraction would only work if you'd managed to make them discard the first one, or if they'd gone for the combo, and you'd managed to stop it with a kill spell. Stain the Mind circumvents that.
@NewModern - Love your contribution. You have a lot of great insight.
Why no love for the fetches?
Here's what I've gathered from this forum about when Lead is better than Chord and vice-versa. The SB bullets we tend to Chord for is in parenthesis. Hoping y'all will tell me what I'm wrong about oroverlooking, and maybe shed some light on what to side out:
Lists where you want Chord post-board:
Twin (Rec Sage, Skite, Essence Warden(?))
Bogles (Skite, Rec Sage)
Burn (Finks, Skite, E Warden, Forge-Tender)
Scapeshift (Skite, Forge-Tender for Anger)
Infect (Skite, Melira)
Tron (Forge-Tender. If I'm on the play, I usually stay small w/Lead and hope they stumble and I have a turn 4 or 5 kill. Doubt this is optimal)
Living End/Ad Nauseam (Forge-Tender for AN, tears and rage for LI)
Lead stays/comes in for:
Junk and Jund
Non-Burn Zoo
Mirror/other CoCo builds (not sure here)
Affinity (very unsure-maybe Chord for Skite?)
Bloom (maybe Chord for Forge-Tender?)
Merfolk
Grixis/UWx Control
Am I on the right track here? As you can see, there are a few major decks that I'm unsure about, and I imagine I got some others wrong. Any advice on this, or on what to side out for our bullets would be appreciated. We can use Andrews list as a reference point- folks who MB Chord and SB Lead would be able to glean something from it as well. Hope I'm not sidetracking or taking us in too much of a newb-centric direction.
Extreamly lose because it dies to a stiff breeze, but something to remeber.
My testing has yielded good results for Nettle Sentinels, but maybe there is a case for dropping them. This is the third time this type of list (same guy twice) has made top eight in a major (over 200 player) event and with the Grand Prix top 16, Shaman of the Pack seems to be here to stay.
I may be biased from my testing, but I really do like the spells-in-the-sideboard direction the Japanese lists take. I feel that taking wisdom from the Legacy lists (our older cousin), going midrange with our deck, including heavy hitters like Chameleon Colossus and slowing them down, hitting with Shamans seems like a good take. Though the list mentioned does not have Chameleon Colossus.
I don't think this is the only way to take, not in the least. It is "a" way to take and it seems to be working here in Japan.
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
1 Overgrown Tomb
4 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
4 Gilt-Leaf Palace
3 Cavern of Souls
1 Pendelhaven
1 Horizon Canopy
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Heritage Druid
1 Boreal Druid
4 Dwynen's Elite
4 Elvish Visionary
1 Spellskite
4 Shaman of the Pack
4 Elvish Archdruid
3 Ezuri, Renegade Leader
1 Eternal Witness
4 Collected Company
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Thoughtseize
2 Dismember
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Fracturing Gust
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Here is the place where the videos are posted of the guy who played said list. It's round 1 against Esper I believe.
BGElvesBG and BUGNissa ElvesBUG Faithful Elfer since May 1st, 2015
Results: SCG IQ Top 8, Monthly Modern Masters Top 4
Also kinda was thinking how good it could be game 2 or 3 with the possibility of CoCo into E-witness returning a thoughtseize.
As for the list, the creature core looks fine, and so does the spellsuite. Only thing I would suggest are mana base fixes. I'd probably get rid of the Razorverge Thickets, and add a Cavern and the last Palace. Its much more important for you to hit Black instead of White, and with fetches you can grab the 1 of Temple Garden at any point.
As for the sideboard, generally speaking theres only one instance where you don't want to have a toolbox, and thats Burn. Generally people pick between running 3 Finks or 3 Essence Wardens in the board. Other then that, seems like a good list.
If you haven't yet, check out Andrew Sullano's list from the recent Grand Prix in Pittsburgh. His success has steered the conversation for the last few weeks, and he was nice enough to answer some questions here. Definitely worth scrolling back through the posts since Nov. 22.
The tl;dr version is- Lead the Stampede MB, with Chord and toolbox creatures sided in once we know our opponent's deck and the specific answers we need. Junk colors don't hurt us. Lots of folks still play the Chord toolbox main, and your list looks pretty standard (and good). I'm not experienced enough to critique your manabase other than to say that I've never regretted running a set of Gilt-Leafs.
Seems like all the one-ofs in your board would make you very reliant on Chord to find your answers, which is more feasible in some MUs than others. Would like to know how much of a liability it is once you've done some testing. Seems like a great way to test out your sb options in any case.