Also for displacer/strangler I think it's a meta call, I'd probably play a split because I saw mostly control decks/combo where strangler had no targets for most of the game and I was siding them out constantly.
For tidehollow, I was playing him turn 2-4 and it felt good most of the time, I never got the golden combo of sculler-process, but he drew aggro and coming off a inquisition or two it just wrecked their hand having to use more removal to get their card back.
As far as Tidehollow Sculler. It's been terrible. The mana can't support him and I would rather just play more Lilianas or Thoughtsieze/Duress. Have never been able to cast him on turn 2 in 20+ games so far with an opening hand on the play.
This surprises me, I've been having great success w/ sculler and have never had a problem casting him on turn 2. It could certainly be a meta issue that's making him seem better for me but would you mind posting your manabase?
Edit: I also feel that if Displacer turns out to be worth a spot Sculler gets even better
What does a mana base have to do with not being an Eldrazi, force you to go away from playing more Ghost Quarters MD, and being just a 2/2 that has no card advantage unless it stays alive?
The card isn't good. At all. It's a magical christmas land card that people WANT to play but shouldn't because there are more powerful effects like Liliana or just playing another IoK or Thoughtseize.
You know what wins? Consistency. Adding Sculler takes away from the decks consistency for a small tempo play in a format that is all about doing broken things with insane card draw.
Yeah. No. Pass. Sculler literally is terrible against most of the popular decks that have numerous ways to get around him.
As far as Tidehollow Sculler. It's been terrible. The mana can't support him and I would rather just play more Lilianas or Thoughtsieze/Duress. Have never been able to cast him on turn 2 in 20+ games so far with an opening hand on the play.
This surprises me, I've been having great success w/ sculler and have never had a problem casting him on turn 2. It could certainly be a meta issue that's making him seem better for me but would you mind posting your manabase?
Edit: I also feel that if Displacer turns out to be worth a spot Sculler gets even better
What does a mana base have to do with not being an Eldrazi, force you to go away from playing more Ghost Quarters MD, and being just a 2/2 that has no card advantage unless it stays alive?
The card isn't good. At all. It's a magical christmas land card that people WANT to play but shouldn't because there are more powerful effects like Liliana or just playing another IoK or Thoughtseize.
You know what wins? Consistency. Adding Sculler takes away from the decks consistency for a small tempo play in a format that is all about doing broken things with insane card draw.
Yeah. No. Pass. Sculler literally is terrible against most of the popular decks that have numerous ways to get around him.
i think the nail on the head with this comment is that this card is tempo, pure and simple. this is not a tempo deck, its midrange.
2/1/0 spellskite in the main board. I run 2 but with the new white eldrazi spoiled, seems like it can relegate to the sideboard and bring in more discards main board instead
As far as Tidehollow Sculler. It's been terrible. The mana can't support him and I would rather just play more Lilianas or Thoughtsieze/Duress. Have never been able to cast him on turn 2 in 20+ games so far with an opening hand on the play.
This surprises me, I've been having great success w/ sculler and have never had a problem casting him on turn 2. It could certainly be a meta issue that's making him seem better for me but would you mind posting your manabase?
Edit: I also feel that if Displacer turns out to be worth a spot Sculler gets even better
What does a mana base have to do with not being an Eldrazi, force you to go away from playing more Ghost Quarters MD, and being just a 2/2 that has no card advantage unless it stays alive?
The card isn't good. At all. It's a magical christmas land card that people WANT to play but shouldn't because there are more powerful effects like Liliana or just playing another IoK or Thoughtseize.
You know what wins? Consistency. Adding Sculler takes away from the decks consistency for a small tempo play in a format that is all about doing broken things with insane card draw.
Yeah. No. Pass. Sculler literally is terrible against most of the popular decks that have numerous ways to get around him.
Up to you dude, I wanted to see your manabase because I was surprised you were having an issue getting BW on turn 2. I'm assuming it's because you play more lands that only produce colorless than I do. It, at least in my experience, is not at all magical christmas land to sculler on turn 2, take their one removal/sweeper card, and then process that card w/ strangler on turn 3 to kill a dude. This is obviously not every game, but it occurs consistently enough that I like it as tech. Sculler has been really effective for me against linear combo, aggro, tron, and control and I have stated several times in this thread that I like it as an early play that can at best disrupt and at worst act as a stalling speed bump while we grind out advantage. But as I said in my comment above I'm sure its' usefulness is meta-dependent. If you have been posting better results w/out it ball out.
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
As far as Tidehollow Sculler. It's been terrible. The mana can't support him and I would rather just play more Lilianas or Thoughtsieze/Duress. Have never been able to cast him on turn 2 in 20+ games so far with an opening hand on the play.
This surprises me, I've been having great success w/ sculler and have never had a problem casting him on turn 2. It could certainly be a meta issue that's making him seem better for me but would you mind posting your manabase?
You know what wins? Consistency. Adding Sculler takes away from the decks consistency for a small tempo play in a format that is all about doing broken things with insane card draw.
Sculler is terrible against most of the popular decks that have numerous ways to get around him.
Up to you dude, I wanted to see your manabase because I was surprised you were having an issue getting BW on turn 2. I'm assuming it's because you play more lands that only produce colorless than I do.
Kruphix7, could you post up your own manabase? I just got through a 2-2 tourney tonight where I lost to Affinity without ever seeing W in the whole match. I also had a game against UWR Twin where the same thing happened, though I managed to crush that guy nonetheless.
From where I sit, the deck has two weaknesses and they both have to do with consistency.
First, getting the mana I want can be tough. Sometimes I don't have the ramp lands, or if I do, then I don't have both colors. And I need both colors, because I am trying to play B on turn 1-3 and I definitely want W by T3. Based on my play experience I would not expect Sculler to work well and would expect Brain Maggot to be far more consistent.
Second, despite running 4 Relics, 2 Claws, 4 Path, 1 Bog, and even 2 Surgical Extractions maindeck, I find far too often that I don't have targets in exile to Process, or maybe I don't even have targets to exile from the yard in the first place, if I don't draw any disruption (e.g., Affinity, Merfolk).
Anyone else having this consistency problem? When the deck is firing on all cylinders it is crazy strong, but I have had some issues. I am going to 2x Plains and 2x Swamp from here.
Well judging your manabase, in my opinion you don't have enough colored mana. 2 Godless Shrines. 1 plains 2 swamp? And 2 urborg.... Here's the mana base I'm using its similar to yours but I have not really had any issues with mana. 2 Eye of Ugin, 4 Eldrazi Temple, 1 Caves of Kolios, 2 Marsh Flats, 1 Urborg, 3 Ghost Quarter, 1 godless shrine, 1 vault of the archangel, 5 swamp 4 plains
Yeah, as much as I love the BW version, you are still essentially playing a 3 color deck without fetchlands in most builds. The monoblack version runs smoothly and consistently. Still, I can't wait for another black Eldrazi to be spoiled.
Kruphix7, could you post up your own manabase? I just got through a 2-2 tourney tonight where I lost to Affinity without ever seeing W in the whole match. I also had a game against UWR Twin where the same thing happened, though I managed to crush that guy nonetheless.
Explanation of choices:
Temple/Urborg: standard numbers
Godless Shrine: I like 1 because it allows me to fetch for my deck's two colors early but rather than more shocks I like 2 caves. They give B or W if we absolutely need it but don't hurt to pay colorless (which tends to be fine past turn 2) and always come into play untapped. 2 GQ, I like having this card, I have 2 more in the SB for Tron and such but for md 2 has been fine for me. 2 eye, I don't feel BW needs to ramp as quickly and as hard as monoB or even monoR since we tend to be slower and grind much more, as such I like 2 eye as opposed to 3 or more. Swamps/Plains, I like basics. They avoid bloodmoon, are fetchable, and don't pain you. Burn seems to be cyclically prevalent in my meta so when there is a lot of it I switch out one of each basic for shambling vent since I have found that to be surprisingly good against burn. I am by no means saying this is the ideal manabase for this deck, I think (like all card choices) it probably varies by meta. But this has been working for me and lets me get both my colors early
On maggot/sculler, I think they are interchangeable. Maggot is easier to cast and slightly smaller, sculler is harder to cast but slightly bigger, doesn't put enchantment type into your gy (goyf) and can occasionally turn into castigate if people kill it in response to you casting it (they usually only make this mistake once but it happens). I think it's personal preference, including if you want to play a card of this type at all.
As to your consistency issues, again I don't think my list is the best there is, but more basics/pain lands help w/ colors and cards like sculler (I understand he may not be good in your meta, mine is a lot of linear combo) really helps w/ early exile fodder and doesn't care if your opponent isn't putting things into the gy. I think the big difference between BW and the other two versions is we are less reliant on getting our ramp lands out as fast as possible. Use discard, spot removal, and souls to stall the board, and if you have to wait all the way until turn 4-5 to cast herder that's ok. (my personal experience, I'm sure others may feel otherwise).
This deck should have consistency problems.
To consistently get black mana in your opening hand you need 14 black sources - you run 11.
If you want white mana on turn 3 you need 12 sources - you run 7.
With all due respect, Dimmez, would you mind sharing where you got those numbers for mana odds? I only ask because as you may be aware, 94% of all statistics are made up on the spot .
Seriously, though, I am truly interested in the chance of finding certain cards in my decks and would love to know if you have a quantitative basis for those figures. I agree that I need to change things up, which is why I posted.
I think I might run with the two caves of kolios possibly go for a 25th lad with Bokoju Bog. I'm not a huge fan of fetches and shocks in this deck for some reason it seems like it's not as heavily needed as other decks. Nothing has double mana symbols except dismember and you can pay life for that too if you want: that's another reason I have 2 marsh flats and 1 godless shrine. I opted for dismember instead of go for the throat, it's a local meta call. It'd be great to figure out the 4 ghost quarter MB in the B/w mana base, but I'm afraid it really makes it shaky. I also dislike that urborg is eating up two spots of our land. I understand why it's good, but do we really need it?
Was a good read. He faced a surprising number of burn decks and Tron and fish. Granted his opponents made some mistakes, but certainly shows that the BW version can hang with the problem decks.
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Current Decks
Modern
No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
As far as land goes, I think 24 land is too few. I tried there and found I just had horrible mulligans. I would really suggest going to 25. I run 4 marsh flat, 3 godless shrines, 1 shambling vent, 2 plains, 2 swamps, 2 Urborg, 4 temples, 3 eyes and 3 GQ.
That is 10 white sources, 12 black sources. Not ideally ensure 90% turn 1 black source but that is the price you pay for sol lands and such. We trade consistency for ramping.
I want to work in another GQ and a Vault but not sure how I want to do it.
It'd be great to figure out the 4 ghost quarter MB in the B/w mana base, but I'm afraid it really makes it shaky. I also dislike that urborg is eating up two spots of our land. I understand why it's good, but do we really need it?
Urborg is the bomb, we need at least two. It's what makes Eye tap for mana. It also turns on any off-color fetches we capture with Sower. I agree that 4 GQ is unlikely to work out.
Also if you have an Urborg in play and draw a second one, you can tap the forst for one floatong mana and play the second, so I don't feel too bad about seeing two compared to seeing 3 Ugins in a game. But of urborg is in play you can do the same thing with them.
I'm waiting on my Wasteland Stranglers to come in, then I'll have everything I need for this deck (I had playsets of Eyes and Temples from when those sets came out), but I am curious about Conduit of Ruin.
On the one hand his search isn't that great, since it can only find Ulamog. On the other, post board, when people are likely to be attacking our mana base, having another source of cost reduction seems pretty good, since they will be putting a big target on Eyes and Temples.
In the end, I guess it probably still isn't worth it though.
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"The Ancients teach us that if we can but last, we shall prevail."
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Can we update the primer with the tournament tested decklists? Other resources like the 12-3 tournament report on reddit should be added as well. It is hard to follow everything in this thread...
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Legacy:B The Gate // B Pox Modern:RGB Dredge // RBG Goblins // B The Gate // UBR Tezz AoB Control // RBG Prison Pox EDH:RBU Thraximundar // R Norin the Wary // RWB Kaalia of the Vast // BUR Grixis Combos // BU Gisa and Geralf Tribal Tiny Leaders:BUW Sydri, Galvanic Genius // R Feldon of the Third Path
Ok. Now we are talking. This seems to me like the greatest addition so far. Doesn't cost much with our lands, basically a 5/5 haste trample with weak hexproof ability for 3 mana. That fit into a more aggressive shell, and would need to rethink the deck though
Ok. Now we are talking. This seems to me like the greatest addition so far. Doesn't cost much with our lands, basically a 5/5 haste trample with weak hexproof ability for 3 mana. That fit into a more aggressive shell, and would need to rethink the deck though
Holy F...
I'm getting more and more excited to play with this deck lol
Ok. Now we are talking. This seems to me like the greatest addition so far. Doesn't cost much with our lands, basically a 5/5 haste trample with weak hexproof ability for 3 mana. That fit into a more aggressive shell, and would need to rethink the deck though
Holy Mother of Emrakul! This is sweet!
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Standard : What is Stand-tart
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
For tidehollow, I was playing him turn 2-4 and it felt good most of the time, I never got the golden combo of sculler-process, but he drew aggro and coming off a inquisition or two it just wrecked their hand having to use more removal to get their card back.
What does a mana base have to do with not being an Eldrazi, force you to go away from playing more Ghost Quarters MD, and being just a 2/2 that has no card advantage unless it stays alive?
The card isn't good. At all. It's a magical christmas land card that people WANT to play but shouldn't because there are more powerful effects like Liliana or just playing another IoK or Thoughtseize.
You know what wins? Consistency. Adding Sculler takes away from the decks consistency for a small tempo play in a format that is all about doing broken things with insane card draw.
Yeah. No. Pass. Sculler literally is terrible against most of the popular decks that have numerous ways to get around him.
Just can't wait for Tendrils to hit!
3-0 at Monday Modern tonight. I beat Abzan Company, Twin, and Grixis control.
i think the nail on the head with this comment is that this card is tempo, pure and simple. this is not a tempo deck, its midrange.
WBGCompany
Up to you dude, I wanted to see your manabase because I was surprised you were having an issue getting BW on turn 2. I'm assuming it's because you play more lands that only produce colorless than I do. It, at least in my experience, is not at all magical christmas land to sculler on turn 2, take their one removal/sweeper card, and then process that card w/ strangler on turn 3 to kill a dude. This is obviously not every game, but it occurs consistently enough that I like it as tech. Sculler has been really effective for me against linear combo, aggro, tron, and control and I have stated several times in this thread that I like it as an early play that can at best disrupt and at worst act as a stalling speed bump while we grind out advantage. But as I said in my comment above I'm sure its' usefulness is meta-dependent. If you have been posting better results w/out it ball out.
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
From where I sit, the deck has two weaknesses and they both have to do with consistency.
1x Bojuka Bog
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Eye of Ugin
3x Ghost Quarter
2x Godless Shrine
4x Marsh Flats
1x Plains
3x Swamp
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vault of the Archangel
Creature (12)
4x Blight Herder
4x Oblivion Sower
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
3x Wasteland Strangler
2x Doom Blade
4x Path to Exile
2x Surgical Extraction
Sorcery (9)
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
2x Thoughtseize
Artifact (6)
4x Relic of Progenitus
2x Scrabbling Claws
1x Expedition Map
1x All Is Dust
2x Celestial Purge
1x Damnation
2x Disenchant
1x Engineered Explosives
3x Rest for the Weary
3x Spellskite
2x Stony Silence
Happy to,
2 Caves of Koilos
4 Marsh Flats
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Eye of Ugin
1 Godless Shrine
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Swamp
4 Plains
Explanation of choices:
Temple/Urborg: standard numbers
Godless Shrine: I like 1 because it allows me to fetch for my deck's two colors early but rather than more shocks I like 2 caves. They give B or W if we absolutely need it but don't hurt to pay colorless (which tends to be fine past turn 2) and always come into play untapped. 2 GQ, I like having this card, I have 2 more in the SB for Tron and such but for md 2 has been fine for me. 2 eye, I don't feel BW needs to ramp as quickly and as hard as monoB or even monoR since we tend to be slower and grind much more, as such I like 2 eye as opposed to 3 or more. Swamps/Plains, I like basics. They avoid bloodmoon, are fetchable, and don't pain you. Burn seems to be cyclically prevalent in my meta so when there is a lot of it I switch out one of each basic for shambling vent since I have found that to be surprisingly good against burn. I am by no means saying this is the ideal manabase for this deck, I think (like all card choices) it probably varies by meta. But this has been working for me and lets me get both my colors early
On maggot/sculler, I think they are interchangeable. Maggot is easier to cast and slightly smaller, sculler is harder to cast but slightly bigger, doesn't put enchantment type into your gy (goyf) and can occasionally turn into castigate if people kill it in response to you casting it (they usually only make this mistake once but it happens). I think it's personal preference, including if you want to play a card of this type at all.
As to your consistency issues, again I don't think my list is the best there is, but more basics/pain lands help w/ colors and cards like sculler (I understand he may not be good in your meta, mine is a lot of linear combo) really helps w/ early exile fodder and doesn't care if your opponent isn't putting things into the gy. I think the big difference between BW and the other two versions is we are less reliant on getting our ramp lands out as fast as possible. Use discard, spot removal, and souls to stall the board, and if you have to wait all the way until turn 4-5 to cast herder that's ok. (my personal experience, I'm sure others may feel otherwise).
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
Seriously, though, I am truly interested in the chance of finding certain cards in my decks and would love to know if you have a quantitative basis for those figures. I agree that I need to change things up, which is why I posted.
Was a good read. He faced a surprising number of burn decks and Tron and fish. Granted his opponents made some mistakes, but certainly shows that the BW version can hang with the problem decks.
That is 10 white sources, 12 black sources. Not ideally ensure 90% turn 1 black source but that is the price you pay for sol lands and such. We trade consistency for ramping.
I want to work in another GQ and a Vault but not sure how I want to do it.
Thanks much!
If you cut either of these you have to cut some colorless lands.
GQ is also a colored source in some sense...
On the one hand his search isn't that great, since it can only find Ulamog. On the other, post board, when people are likely to be attacking our mana base, having another source of cost reduction seems pretty good, since they will be putting a big target on Eyes and Temples.
In the end, I guess it probably still isn't worth it though.
—Kaysa, Elder Druid of the Juniper Order
Modern: RGB Dredge // RBG Goblins // B The Gate // UBR Tezz AoB Control // RBG Prison Pox
EDH: RBU Thraximundar // R Norin the Wary // RWB Kaalia of the Vast // BUR Grixis Combos // BU Gisa and Geralf Tribal
Tiny Leaders: BUW Sydri, Galvanic Genius // R Feldon of the Third Path
Projects:
Gisa and Geralf Extreme-Tribal EDH
Esper Eldrazi Processor Control
Brewing with Kuldotha Forgemaster
Primer: "The Gate" - Mono Black in Modern
Modern Prison Pox - building a better plague
sweet sassy molassy that's a spicy meatloaf.
Holy F...
I'm getting more and more excited to play with this deck lol
GXTronGX
RWxBurnRWx
Holy Mother of Emrakul! This is sweet!
Modern : Huh?
EDH : UBGW Thrasios / Tymna Combo UBGW // GRW Mayael Big Stuff GRW // GU Edric Timewalkers GU
Currently Playing:
Legacy: Something U/W Controlish
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