I'm the only one who think abzan is too strong to face with wb tokens?
They got answer to everything.
Our Abzan matchup is actually not that bad. Liliana of the Veil isn't that useful against us, Scavenging Ooze won't get bigger, our tokens are bigger than their Lingering Souls tokens most of the time. Save removal for Siege Rhino. After boarding, bring in graveyard hate for Tarmogoyf and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Zealous Persecution can be a key card, on both sides. Side out discard, especially versus the Liege version.
Any white fetch is fine. Marsh Flats can just be better in certain situations for getting a basic swamp (doesn't happen often). Most people play some number of other fetches as well.
Rotex, to deal with Rhino, I use the new color-hate cards from DTK.
The white is favorable, it will explode it and gain you life. The black one will force them to sac it only if they don't have any other creature.
Jposho thats a really interesting strategy. What do other people think about using Seeker of the Way and Harsh Sustenance? I can tell from having Monastery Mentor that the deck triggers prowess often.
Game 1: Infect 1-2
This guy won the tournament doing 4-0. The first match I could kill his dudes and creating some tokens. Zealous persecution helped a lot. I casted a Bladehold for the win. Sideboarded 2 chalices and 1 zealous. I know he put MB spellskite changing the target of my spells, he was fast. Third game I put the 2 disenchant for the nexus and spellskite, but I got a really bad hand, mulligan for almost the same hand, but with 6 card. Lost.
Game 2: UWB Control or something like that 2-0
This was played storm last time and now he has a weird control. Nothing speacial against this match, he was only delaying my match (returning dudes, countering, bolting) but was not that hard to win with the amount of lifegain I have. Didnt sideboarded anything.
Game 3: RW Something 2-0
This guy was playing Twin last time and now a homebrew deck. Similar to the last match, wasnt that hard. Nothing to say.
Game 3: Scapeshift 0-2
This guy was playing Twin the last time too. Was a terrible match. The first one I got land screwed with 2 lands and I was watching him to combo off basically. The second match I let him to 1 life, tried to cast a Memoricide that was under [[Windbrisk Heights]], but he delayed it all the time bouncing or destroying my dudes. And when, finnally, I could attack with 3 dudes to cast it, he Remanded it and then combo off.
Resume: As we know, combo is not a good match. I think Im gonna search for 4 Leyline of Sanctity on place of 2 Kor Firewalker and 2 Memoricide. Infect depends more about my hand and who starts...
I do not think, that combo's are bad for us since i use 3 Scullers, 4 Kozilek's and 3 Thoughtseize.
About Infect: T1 thoughseize or Kozilek can be very bad for them. After with all our Path's and Persecution's its no way Infect can "ressurect".
About Scape: yes, this is very hard one. I think only one Combo deck, that don't afraid of discard mostly. Fast aggro hands can be good here.
Other combo decks are very vulnerable for us.
Did great against my local meta coming in 1/20. Spear of Heliod worked out very well for me being able to push the last amounts of damage in 2-3 games that I needed. Honor of the Pure would be better if I wasn't using Bitter Blossom. BB showed why it's such an expensive card this weekend, pulling it's weight to earn me a few wins by itself. Secure the Wastes was definitely a great finisher in some of the mid-game to late-game grindy matchups; It took the place of my 2x Zealous Persecution. Sorin, Solemn Visitor pulled his weight every matchup. Couple of times all I had to do was cast him and the opponent scooped. Someone said it before but this allows us to go YOLO (You Only Live Once). Infect nuked me, but I pulled thru the matchup going 2-1. Sided in 3x Duress and the 3x Sundering Growth for that Wild Defiance. He won the first one and I managed to take back the match in Game 2 & 3 with the SB.
On to the SB: This is a standard line-up for my SB. Played against a few Storm decks all of which I went 2-0. 3x Duress was good, Nevermore for that Grapeshot, Rest in Peace for Storm and the one Reanimator I faced. Stony Silence didn't do a whole lot for me this go around. Not many heavy artifact users in the group. Sundering Growth was great for me because I wasn't the only Token user there. I WAS however, the only one with 3x Sundering Growths in the SB. Ugh... Bloom Titan was rough and Abzan too. Torpor Orb proved itself this weekend as well.
Things I really liked: Having 4x Windbrisk Heights assured me I could cycle thru my library whenever I needed too and allowed me to cheat out 4x Sorins, 2-3 Spears, 3x Intangible Virtues thru the tournament. Most people say 4x Windbrisk is too much, I find it to be very helpful as a playset. Didn't see too much land destruction this go around so it was better for me. Murderous Cut as a 3-of was perfect for me. 8x Fetches was enough to fill the GY quick enough to where I could use it as a 1-2 CMC.
Things I could change in the future based off findings: I could say Secure the Wastes can be interchangeable with Zealous Persecution as a 2-of-max. Possibly push a Stony Silence from the SB for another Timely Reinforcement in the SB. Burn almost got me a few times. They had to choose between my army of creatures or my Sorin or myself.
Things I noticed: When you have Spear of Heliod and your resident Vault of the Archangel out the opponent tends to look and remember one, but not the other. As I was able to nuke a few creatures with the opposite one they were expecting.
I really like auriok champion, I would prefer her over timely in the mainboard, cause she is a guaranteed lifegain if not removed soon and a solid 2drop (which is not that easy cause of the protection, which means it can also be thrown in to block all red and black).
Timely reinforcements is highly situational and that´s why it is just in my sideboard and I board them in against Burn and every aggresive deck.
Liliana sounds like a good idea, i probably should go first at the mentioned tournament next time, cause she was the prize, and before i spent 65 euro on her, ill go fix up my manabase and get 2 leyline of Sanctity.
Try to proxy Lili and try out with your friends.Personally, i don't like Lili in this deck.
Is Seeker of the Way worth it?
T2 Seeker
T3 Anthem swing, path their creature swing for 5 gain 5.
seems pretty reasonable.
(Also, there's almost no creatures in the deck so prowess will tirgger plenty. I think he may end up gaining more life than a soul warden or champion)
Is Seeker of the Way worth it?
T2 Seeker
T3 Anthem swing, path their creature swing for 5 gain 5.
seems pretty reasonable.
(Also, there's almost no creatures in the deck so prowess will tirgger plenty. I think he may end up gaining more life than a soul warden or champion)
I play Seeker as a 4 of, but he's kind of a hold over from the Delver/Burn era. Seeker is really good as a budget option, but I think Auriok Champ is probably better. I just don't own any or plan to.
Took Tokens to a small local GPT, went 3-2 good for 6th place but they cut to 4 sadly. Lost to Feed the Clan in Jund and Ad Naseum which I couldn't interact with very well. Love me some Tokens action, but I've been playing mostly blue decks lately. I don't like playing the game off the top of deck.
@ Jposho, I think we've gone over this in the thread before, but Harsh sustenance is not a good card, sometimes it may work, but a majority of them time, it's just making you win more, or it's making you lose because you have no tokens in play or won't deal enough damage to kill your opponent or a creature they control that matters.
@ Inceptional Mage, I think you have a good point on the aggro match ups, a lot of the time we are favoured, at least slightly, maybe I'm just too scared of burn and I like to have options against them. I feel that against control that even though Lily is good, we have better cards. I'm a big fan of going upto 10 discard in game 2/3 against them by sideing in my 3 duress. I think the selection it gives helps a lot by eliminating there key cards compared to just getting rid of one card from their most likely fully stocked hand. Also by turn 3, we really want tokens in play. I think that's why I like Sorin more because I'm able to use him as a finisher.
Made 27th in the Richmond modern premier iQ today going, 5-2-1. I'll write up a report later. Didn't love some things about my build, loved other things, but this was the first time I ever played with the deck so had to give it a test run. All my losses came from definite play mistakes so played well and built better, I think the deck could be great. Here is my clunky maindeck.
@ Jposho, I think we've gone over this in the thread before, but Harsh sustenance is not a good card, sometimes it may work, but a majority of them time, it's just making you win more, or it's making you lose because you have no tokens in play or won't deal enough damage to kill your opponent or a creature they control that matters.
@ Inceptional Mage, I think you have a good point on the aggro match ups, a lot of the time we are favoured, at least slightly, maybe I'm just too scared of burn and I like to have options against them. I feel that against control that even though Lily is good, we have better cards. I'm a big fan of going upto 10 discard in game 2/3 against them by sideing in my 3 duress. I think the selection it gives helps a lot by eliminating there key cards compared to just getting rid of one card from their most likely fully stocked hand. Also by turn 3, we really want tokens in play. I think that's why I like Sorin more because I'm able to use him as a finisher.
I'm sorry, buy i hate burn and burn players, so i can understand your feelings. All my SB stuff dedicated to burn, cause this deck is damn scary. I really don't like play magic, when i faced off against burn.
anybody tried secure the wastes yet? I'm kinda curious how it'll do as a somewhat post board wipe gimmick currently here's what I'm planning to test in the next local modern get together here in our area.
I don't think Seeker of the Way is where we want to be with tokens. A big part of where we get card advantage is opponents using whole cards to kill parts of cards (Bolting a token). Seeker makes their removal spells 1 for 1s, which is very much not good for us. Obvious exceptions to this rule being creatures that don't die to most removal (Auriok Champion) or win us the game if we get to untap with them in play (Hero of Bladehold).
As for Secure the Wastes, I think its a card that should only see play as a 1 of, maybe a 2 of at most. It's just worse than any of our other token generators at anything less than X=5 and in a deck running 22-23 lands with no card draw you won't see 6 mana with any consistency. It's a great late game mana sink, but having more than 1 in your hand is going to make you wish you didn't play more than 1.
@bryanbogz What do you side in the packrats against?
Abazan matchups for us tend to come down to top decks in which we are favored. If you know what to look for and don't overextend your board, you should win. Boarding out Thoughtseize in favor of more aggro or something else is generally a good idea IMO.
Our Abzan matchup is actually not that bad. Liliana of the Veil isn't that useful against us, Scavenging Ooze won't get bigger, our tokens are bigger than their Lingering Souls tokens most of the time. Save removal for Siege Rhino. After boarding, bring in graveyard hate for Tarmogoyf and Tasigur, the Golden Fang. Zealous Persecution can be a key card, on both sides. Side out discard, especially versus the Liege version.
The white is favorable, it will explode it and gain you life. The black one will force them to sac it only if they don't have any other creature.
Jposho thats a really interesting strategy. What do other people think about using Seeker of the Way and Harsh Sustenance? I can tell from having Monastery Mentor that the deck triggers prowess often.
WUR Control
WB Tokens
2x Flooded Strand
4x Godless Shrine
4x Isolated Chapel
4x Marsh Flats
5x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Windbrisk Heights
Enchantment (5)
4x Honor of the Pure
1x Intangible Virtue
Planeswalker (2)
1x Liliana of the Veil
1x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
4x Spectral Procession
2x Thoughtseize
Instant (9)
2x Go for the Throat
4x Path to Exile
3x Zealous Persecution
Creature (8)
4x Auriok Champion
1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
3x Hero of Bladehold
2x Chalice of the Void
2x Disenchant
4x Kor Firewalker
2x Memoricide
2x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
1x Zealous Persecution
Game 1: Infect 1-2
This guy won the tournament doing 4-0. The first match I could kill his dudes and creating some tokens. Zealous persecution helped a lot. I casted a Bladehold for the win. Sideboarded 2 chalices and 1 zealous. I know he put MB spellskite changing the target of my spells, he was fast. Third game I put the 2 disenchant for the nexus and spellskite, but I got a really bad hand, mulligan for almost the same hand, but with 6 card. Lost.
Game 2: UWB Control or something like that 2-0
This was played storm last time and now he has a weird control. Nothing speacial against this match, he was only delaying my match (returning dudes, countering, bolting) but was not that hard to win with the amount of lifegain I have. Didnt sideboarded anything.
Game 3: RW Something 2-0
This guy was playing Twin last time and now a homebrew deck. Similar to the last match, wasnt that hard. Nothing to say.
Game 3: Scapeshift 0-2
This guy was playing Twin the last time too. Was a terrible match. The first one I got land screwed with 2 lands and I was watching him to combo off basically. The second match I let him to 1 life, tried to cast a Memoricide that was under [[Windbrisk Heights]], but he delayed it all the time bouncing or destroying my dudes. And when, finnally, I could attack with 3 dudes to cast it, he Remanded it and then combo off.
Resume: As we know, combo is not a good match. I think Im gonna search for 4 Leyline of Sanctity on place of 2 Kor Firewalker and 2 Memoricide. Infect depends more about my hand and who starts...
4 Path to Exile
4 Duress - I don't have thoughtseize yet
3 Zealous Persecution
4 Intangible Virtue
2 Tidehollow Sculler - Debating between this and Castigate.
2 Dismember
4 Lingering Souls
4 Spectral Procession
2 Honor of the Pure
4 Timely Reinforcements - trying this over raise the alarm.
2 Worship - I'm getting tired of losing game 1 to combo decks
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor - My Planeswalker of choice
4 Godless Shrine
2 Isolated Chapel
4 Flooded Strand - Marsh Flats are too expensive
10 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Ghost Quarter - Will change to Vault of the Archangel as soon as I get one.
3 Rest In Peace - Graveyard Hate
3 Stony Silence - Artifact Hate
1 Sundering Growth - Virulent Plague Hate
3 Angel's Grace - Debating between this and Faith's Shield
3 Eidolon of Rhetoric - Anti Storm and Living End
2 Celestial Purge - Virulent Plague Hate
What do you guys think?
Modern: Eldrazi Tron, UW Tron, GR Tron, BW Tokens, WU Death and Taxes
About Infect: T1 thoughseize or Kozilek can be very bad for them. After with all our Path's and Persecution's its no way Infect can "ressurect".
About Scape: yes, this is very hard one. I think only one Combo deck, that don't afraid of discard mostly. Fast aggro hands can be good here.
Other combo decks are very vulnerable for us.
On to the SB: This is a standard line-up for my SB. Played against a few Storm decks all of which I went 2-0. 3x Duress was good, Nevermore for that Grapeshot, Rest in Peace for Storm and the one Reanimator I faced. Stony Silence didn't do a whole lot for me this go around. Not many heavy artifact users in the group. Sundering Growth was great for me because I wasn't the only Token user there. I WAS however, the only one with 3x Sundering Growths in the SB. Ugh... Bloom Titan was rough and Abzan too. Torpor Orb proved itself this weekend as well.
Things I really liked: Having 4x Windbrisk Heights assured me I could cycle thru my library whenever I needed too and allowed me to cheat out 4x Sorins, 2-3 Spears, 3x Intangible Virtues thru the tournament. Most people say 4x Windbrisk is too much, I find it to be very helpful as a playset. Didn't see too much land destruction this go around so it was better for me. Murderous Cut as a 3-of was perfect for me. 8x Fetches was enough to fill the GY quick enough to where I could use it as a 1-2 CMC.
Things I could change in the future based off findings: I could say Secure the Wastes can be interchangeable with Zealous Persecution as a 2-of-max. Possibly push a Stony Silence from the SB for another Timely Reinforcement in the SB. Burn almost got me a few times. They had to choose between my army of creatures or my Sorin or myself.
Things I noticed: When you have Spear of Heliod and your resident Vault of the Archangel out the opponent tends to look and remember one, but not the other. As I was able to nuke a few creatures with the opposite one they were expecting.
4x Flooded Strand
4x Marsh Flats
4x Godless Shrine
2x Vault of the Archangel
4x Windbrisk Heights
3x Plains
2x Swamp
Planeswalkers: 3
3x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Artifacts: 1
1x Spear of Heliod
3x Murderous Cut
4x Path to Exile
2x Secure the Wastes
Enchantments: 8
4x Bitterblossom
4x Intangible Virtue
Sorceries: 16
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
4x Spectral Procession
3x Thoughtseize
2x Timely Reinforcements
3x Duress
2x Nevermore
2x Rest in Peace
3x Stony Silence
3x Sundering Growth
2x Torpor Orb
Next up for me is to start going to bigger tournaments with this setup.
Try to proxy Lili and try out with your friends.Personally, i don't like Lili in this deck.
T2 Seeker
T3 Anthem swing, path their creature swing for 5 gain 5.
seems pretty reasonable.
(Also, there's almost no creatures in the deck so prowess will tirgger plenty. I think he may end up gaining more life than a soul warden or champion)
WUR Control
WB Tokens
I play Seeker as a 4 of, but he's kind of a hold over from the Delver/Burn era. Seeker is really good as a budget option, but I think Auriok Champ is probably better. I just don't own any or plan to.
Took Tokens to a small local GPT, went 3-2 good for 6th place but they cut to 4 sadly. Lost to Feed the Clan in Jund and Ad Naseum which I couldn't interact with very well. Love me some Tokens action, but I've been playing mostly blue decks lately. I don't like playing the game off the top of deck.
@ Inceptional Mage, I think you have a good point on the aggro match ups, a lot of the time we are favoured, at least slightly, maybe I'm just too scared of burn and I like to have options against them. I feel that against control that even though Lily is good, we have better cards. I'm a big fan of going upto 10 discard in game 2/3 against them by sideing in my 3 duress. I think the selection it gives helps a lot by eliminating there key cards compared to just getting rid of one card from their most likely fully stocked hand. Also by turn 3, we really want tokens in play. I think that's why I like Sorin more because I'm able to use him as a finisher.
4 Marsh Flats
2 Windswept Heath
1 Temple Garden
2 Windbrisk Heights
4 Isolated Chapel
3 Godless Shrine
1 Gavony Township
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Lingering Souls
4 Spectral Procession
3 Timely Reinforcements
4 Path to Exile
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
1 Dismember
1 Murderous Cut
4 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
1 Elspeth Tirel
4 Intangible Virtue
2 Honor of the Pure
1 Bitterblossom
1 Zealous Persecution
I'm sorry, buy i hate burn and burn players, so i can understand your feelings. All my SB stuff dedicated to burn, cause this deck is damn scary. I really don't like play magic, when i faced off against burn.
4 godless shrine
4 isolated chapel
1 vault of the archangel
1 tectonic edge
3 windbrisk heights
1 urborg tomb of yawgmoth
6 plains
2 swamp
4 lingering souls
4 spectral possession
4 raise the alarm
3 secure the wastes
3 thoughtseize
2 inquisition of kozilek
2 zealous prosecution
4 path to exile
1 dismember
1 tragic slip
4 intangible virtue
1 sorin solemn visitor
1 liliana of the veil
2 stony silence
3 duress
3 timely reinforcements
3 pack rat
3 mirran crusader
1 sword of war and peace
As for Secure the Wastes, I think its a card that should only see play as a 1 of, maybe a 2 of at most. It's just worse than any of our other token generators at anything less than X=5 and in a deck running 22-23 lands with no card draw you won't see 6 mana with any consistency. It's a great late game mana sink, but having more than 1 in your hand is going to make you wish you didn't play more than 1.
@bryanbogz What do you side in the packrats against?
1x Blood Crypt
2x Bloodstained Mire
2x Clifftop Retreat
3x Godless Shrine
2x Isolated Chapel
4x Marsh Flats
1x Mountain
2x Plains
3x Sacred Foundry
1x Swamp
1x Vault of the Archangel
Instant (14)
1x Foul-Tongue Shriek
3x Lightning Bolt
4x Lightning Helix
4x Path to Exile
2x Secure the Wastes
3x Bitterblossom
2x Impact Tremors
4x Intangible Virtue
Planeswalker (2)
2x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Sorcery (8)
4x Lingering Souls
4x Spectral Procession
Creature (4)
4x Young Pyromancer
Artifact (1)
1x Sword of Fire and Ice
2x Deflecting Palm
2x Hide/Seek
2x Kor Firewalker
3x Rest in Peace
2x Stony Silence
4x Thoughtseize