If you don't have enough draw power, play more eggs. And by that I mean the "good" eggs, those that can sacrifice themselves for nothing. Not maxing out Elsewhere Flask before adding Spellbombs and Courier's Capsule is a mistake.
If you find yourself having lots of mana and no eggs in hand, the problem is playing insufficient eggs. Play more of them.
When you play a storm combo deck like Eggs or UR Storm, you should have practically no disruption in Game 1. That is when your opponent is at his most vulnerable, since he doesn't have much hate to deal with you. By adding things that are inefficient or don't contribute to the combo, you lose a lot more G1s - games that should be free wins - because you fizzle.
The maindeck Galvanic Blast is to give me a way to win at instant speed. I know the deck *can* win at instant speed with Pyrite, but only if it's already in play when you begin your combo. I like the ability to go off in response to other combo decks in the format, or when an opponent taps out (thinking they are safe)
I'd likely cut the Spellskite and Torpor orb for something else if the field looks less Twin/Pod, probably play 1 Wipe Away and a Nihil Spellbomb, or a couple Defense Grids
Im very interested in this Deck, can someone tell me what its best and worst matchups are and how it is positioned at the moment?
Best Match Up is any aggressive deck. RDW, Martyr Proc, and similar. Worst is UW control. This deck is incredibly soft to counters. I've seen this deck fold to a well timed Mana Tithe. It has a positive Jund MU, so this deck is typically an all right choice. It's positioned best in a counter lite environment.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Lycanthropy Awareness Day.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Best:
Tron - you're faster than them and they can't stop you outside of Relic or Karn.
Lifegain - you can deal infinite damage, rendering their lifegain useless.
Tokens - they lack ways to interact with you other than Sculler, and they can't play Thalia.
Worst:
Delver - they can drop an early Delver or Goyf and hold up counter mana to prevent you from going off.
UW - you have to get past lots of counterspells.
Infect - they goldfish faster than you and you don't have anything to stop them.
Played some Modern on the weekend; my deck performed much better than I expected it to. I'm hoping Modern catches on locally so I get more opportunities to play it. My current list:
I mull to 5 and get hit by Inquisition, but he doesn't manage to put enough pressure on the board, and I get there eventually.
Game 2 he lands Trygon Predator on the second turn off a Deathrite Shaman, forcing me to try to go off with a fairly sketchy hand - I brick and concede after a couple of turns drawing dead to have time for a third round.
Game 3 gives me a decent opening hand and him stuck on two lands (one of which is a Tec Edge) + Shaman. He was a little bit too aggressive with attacking with the Shaman the whole game - when I went to combo out this game he tried to hit Sunrise with Surgical Extraction and I had double Bauble to stop it, but if he hadn't kept hitting me with the Shaman he would have had that to force me to use both Baubles to try to go off, then Extract the Sunrises. It would be a real bummer if Extirpate started getting played over Extraction, at least in decks that already have first-turn discard - Extraction you can sort of do something about, but Extirpate is mostly a case of siding in Leylines and crossing your fingers.
1-0
Round 2: Robots
This is a pretty easy matchup; a couple of people around here are playing various versions of Robots/Affinity, and as far as I can tell unless they get the absolute nut draw and I keep a very slow hand, I'm faster than them by miles. Game one my opponent drops his hand, puts two Cranial Platings on a Vault Skirge, and I get there before he can hit me again.
Game 2 goes much the same way, except I get to use my secret tech - Gut Shot - before he can get the second Plating attached. After a long time deciding between Pyrite Spellbomb (don't need to mill whole library to go into a game-winning loop, kills Ethersworn Canonist, is an egg) and Gut Shot (kills tons of relevant stuff for free), I came to the conclusion that I could drop my Ichor Wellspring count to 2 to make room for Pyrite Spellbomb and have them both.
2-0
Round 3: B/W Tokens
I have no idea what my opponent is playing at first, because his first land drop is an Evolving Wilds, but since he was 2-0 as well he must have been doing something right. He Lingering Souls into Honor of the Pure (Gut Shot takes one out in response - tech!) + flashback, which puts me under a bit of pressure to go off. I hit the right stuff when I sac all my eggs and get there.
I side in my Echoing Truths for game 2, but it turns out I needn't have bothered; I draw a hand that's all business and he keeps what turns out to be a 1-lander. I combo out with no opposition, and partway through he shows me his Eggs hate - Stony Silence - and scoops.
So, 3-0. I'm pretty comfortable with this deck by now, and I've finally mitigated the problem of what to take out to make room for sideboard cards (- Etherium Sculptors, Codex Shredder, and Gut Shot, + Lab Man and hate cards), so I can go through the motions of the combo fairly swiftly, but Codex Shredder saves so much time by being able to go into a library-drawing/infinite mana/infinite damage loop. Tezzeret also really gets work done with Faith's Reward - Reshape sometimes involves a little bit of fiddling to get the right mana and saccing the right artifacts, put Tezzeret I have no problems just slamming down to get what I need. If you bring him back with a Faith's Reward, there's practically no way you can lose.
Never. Tezzeret goes -4 every time. Fetching a KCI will net at least as much mana from untapping two Citadels on its own, and if you had two Citadels you could eat them both with the KCI you just found for much more. There might be some corner case if you had Terarion or something, but... yeah. -4 every time.
Something I have not seen a lot of decks here featuring is Edge of Autumn. I played it in my Legacy version. It's a free draw and after Second Sunrise you get that land back untapped.
Something I have not seen a lot of decks here featuring is Edge of Autumn. I played it in my Legacy version. It's a free draw and after Second Sunrise you get that land back untapped.
I can see it being useful in Bant versions, setting up turn three combos, but I don't feel it's worth it just for the cycling ability.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Lycanthropy Awareness Day.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Something I have not seen a lot of decks here featuring is Edge of Autumn. I played it in my Legacy version. It's a free draw and after Second Sunrise you get that land back untapped.
I've been running it with Abundant Growth in a bant version. Between that and Ghost Quarter, cycling the enchantments is no problem. It makes Wargate a lot easier to cast too. My deck's similar to Jacob V's old lists.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Some facts of magic:
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
I've been running it with Abundant Growth in a bant version. Between that and Ghost Quarter, cycling the enchantments is no problem. It makes Wargate a lot easier to cast too. My deck's similar to Jacob V's old lists.
I'm not actually playing a bant version. Ya, it has 4-8 cards but no green lands. lol
Do you think you might cut him for a fourth KCI? Or is he still used for tutoring other stuff on occasion?
Nah. Multiple copies of KCI are useless, but you need to have one to go off, barring extraordinary circumstances; 2-3 is gonna be the right number. Tezz is an extra Reshape rather than an extra KCI, so he tutors for other stuff plenty.
I played Edge when I first started out with this deck. Gradually, I dropped it as it's worse than a cantrip. It does nothing before the combo (unlike 'trips, which can draw useful stuff like T1 Blooms and extra Sunrises, and set up your next draws). During the combo, cantrips aren't that bad since they can help you dig for Reshape or Sunrise. Serum Visions is particularly good because it ensures that you Bauble with maximum efficiency - Scry, keeping useful card(s) on top, then Sunrise, then Bauble back Sunrise, and draw the useful card.
thought I'd mention that if you have space for it, Dispense Justice is a SB card that might be worth looking into if you're having trouble with aggro decks.
While it's only decent against decks like Affinity, Zoo, UWr Tempo, it is especially strong against the hyper aggro linear decks like Infect and Bogle/Auras - decks which we tend to have most issue with
Typical SB's look like this:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Bounce Spells (usually 4 Echoing Truth, sometimes a 3/1 split with Wipe Away)
2 Silence (or other such anti-control card like Spell Pierce, etc)
1 Lab Maniac
1 Pithing Needle
3 free spots - usually more bounce, enchantment removal, or other hate-rocks
I think trimming 1 Silence and 1 Bounce spell, possibly 1 of the 'free spots' for 2-3 Dispense Justice could be worthwhile for PTQ's this weekend, expecting the Bogle deck to show up a bit, perhaps 10% of the field?
my current proposed board is thus:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Echoing Truth
2 Dispense Justice
1 Silence (2 main, would consider a 3rd Dispense Justice if not much control)
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Spellskite
1 Torpor Orb or 1 Wipe Away, unsure which I'd prefer still...
for what it's worth - I run 2 KCI, 1 Ichor, 1 Mox Opal, 2 Darksteel Citadel. So, metalcraft is a bit more likely than the pure cantrip version
Spellskite is pretty decent, but I think that Dispense Justice offers a better solution to the Aura decks.
Holy Day is not bad, but it's just a fog for a turn. Dispense actually removes the threat(s) from the board.
Leave no Trace is somewhat more effective at removing the auras, but leaves the threat in place, additionally - Rancors return and can be re-applied, which will only buy a turn or two at best.
I think a couple Dispense Justice are quite good, and so far I've been pretty happy with them in these matchups.
I don't play this deck, but I might as well tell you that you can use Spellskite's ability to take your opponent's aura spells.
So dispense sucks and Spellskite is better.
Spellskite lets me redirect spells?! whoa! (obviously)
You do realize that the Aura deck will have a guy with 2-3 aura's on him already by the time you get Spellskite on the board.
I mean, let's look at this realistically,.
So you have 1 Spellskite in 60 cards. You can luck into it and play it on turn 2. Hooray! Hope they don't have any removal.
Or.. more than likely, you'll be reshaping into it. On turn 4. Still hope they don't have any removal.
....
Alternatively, you could side in 2 or 3 Dispense Justice.
You can cast it on turn 3, which is usually the turn where they begin to become a large threat (8 or so power)
And when they swing with their one, or possibly two 8/8 creatures with a couple auras on each of them, you 5 for 1 them. Permanently.
so, I'm not sure which is better, hope to lucksack into a temporary and fragile solution a turn or two too late or use a permanent solution a turn faster than Spellskite. ie: the turn that it actually matters.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
If you find yourself having lots of mana and no eggs in hand, the problem is playing insufficient eggs. Play more of them.
When you play a storm combo deck like Eggs or UR Storm, you should have practically no disruption in Game 1. That is when your opponent is at his most vulnerable, since he doesn't have much hate to deal with you. By adding things that are inefficient or don't contribute to the combo, you lose a lot more G1s - games that should be free wins - because you fizzle.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
4 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Lotus Bloom
3 Elsewhere Flask
2 Krark-Clan Ironworks
1 Ichor Wellspring
1 Mox Opal
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Faith's Reward
4 Second Sunrise
2 Silence
1 Galvanic Blast
7 Island
4 Ghost Quarter
2 Darksteel Citadel
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Scalding Tarn
4 Reshape
4 Serum Visions
4 Echoing Truth
4 Leyline of Sanctity
2 Silence
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Spellskite
1 Torpor Orb
The maindeck Galvanic Blast is to give me a way to win at instant speed. I know the deck *can* win at instant speed with Pyrite, but only if it's already in play when you begin your combo. I like the ability to go off in response to other combo decks in the format, or when an opponent taps out (thinking they are safe)
I'd likely cut the Spellskite and Torpor orb for something else if the field looks less Twin/Pod, probably play 1 Wipe Away and a Nihil Spellbomb, or a couple Defense Grids
Best Match Up is any aggressive deck. RDW, Martyr Proc, and similar. Worst is UW control. This deck is incredibly soft to counters. I've seen this deck fold to a well timed Mana Tithe. It has a positive Jund MU, so this deck is typically an all right choice. It's positioned best in a counter lite environment.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Level 1 Judge (yay)
Tron - you're faster than them and they can't stop you outside of Relic or Karn.
Lifegain - you can deal infinite damage, rendering their lifegain useless.
Tokens - they lack ways to interact with you other than Sculler, and they can't play Thalia.
Worst:
Delver - they can drop an early Delver or Goyf and hold up counter mana to prevent you from going off.
UW - you have to get past lots of counterspells.
Infect - they goldfish faster than you and you don't have anything to stop them.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Plains
8 Island
2 Etherium Sculptor
3 Lotus Bloom
1 Mox Opal
1 Codex Shredder
4 Conjurer's Bauble
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Chromatic Star
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Gut Shot
4 Elsewhere Flask
2 Ichor Wellspring
4 Second Sunrise
3 Krark-Clan Ironworks
4 Faith's Reward
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
4 Reshape
1 Disciple of the Vault
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Pithing Needle
3 Defense Grid
1 Torpor Orb
3 Echoing Truth
1 Wipe Away
3 Leyline of Sanctity
Round 1: BUG
I mull to 5 and get hit by Inquisition, but he doesn't manage to put enough pressure on the board, and I get there eventually.
Game 2 he lands Trygon Predator on the second turn off a Deathrite Shaman, forcing me to try to go off with a fairly sketchy hand - I brick and concede after a couple of turns drawing dead to have time for a third round.
Game 3 gives me a decent opening hand and him stuck on two lands (one of which is a Tec Edge) + Shaman. He was a little bit too aggressive with attacking with the Shaman the whole game - when I went to combo out this game he tried to hit Sunrise with Surgical Extraction and I had double Bauble to stop it, but if he hadn't kept hitting me with the Shaman he would have had that to force me to use both Baubles to try to go off, then Extract the Sunrises. It would be a real bummer if Extirpate started getting played over Extraction, at least in decks that already have first-turn discard - Extraction you can sort of do something about, but Extirpate is mostly a case of siding in Leylines and crossing your fingers.
1-0
Round 2: Robots
This is a pretty easy matchup; a couple of people around here are playing various versions of Robots/Affinity, and as far as I can tell unless they get the absolute nut draw and I keep a very slow hand, I'm faster than them by miles. Game one my opponent drops his hand, puts two Cranial Platings on a Vault Skirge, and I get there before he can hit me again.
Game 2 goes much the same way, except I get to use my secret tech - Gut Shot - before he can get the second Plating attached. After a long time deciding between Pyrite Spellbomb (don't need to mill whole library to go into a game-winning loop, kills Ethersworn Canonist, is an egg) and Gut Shot (kills tons of relevant stuff for free), I came to the conclusion that I could drop my Ichor Wellspring count to 2 to make room for Pyrite Spellbomb and have them both.
2-0
Round 3: B/W Tokens
I have no idea what my opponent is playing at first, because his first land drop is an Evolving Wilds, but since he was 2-0 as well he must have been doing something right. He Lingering Souls into Honor of the Pure (Gut Shot takes one out in response - tech!) + flashback, which puts me under a bit of pressure to go off. I hit the right stuff when I sac all my eggs and get there.
I side in my Echoing Truths for game 2, but it turns out I needn't have bothered; I draw a hand that's all business and he keeps what turns out to be a 1-lander. I combo out with no opposition, and partway through he shows me his Eggs hate - Stony Silence - and scoops.
So, 3-0. I'm pretty comfortable with this deck by now, and I've finally mitigated the problem of what to take out to make room for sideboard cards (- Etherium Sculptors, Codex Shredder, and Gut Shot, + Lab Man and hate cards), so I can go through the motions of the combo fairly swiftly, but Codex Shredder saves so much time by being able to go into a library-drawing/infinite mana/infinite damage loop. Tezzeret also really gets work done with Faith's Reward - Reshape sometimes involves a little bit of fiddling to get the right mana and saccing the right artifacts, put Tezzeret I have no problems just slamming down to get what I need. If you bring him back with a Faith's Reward, there's practically no way you can lose.
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Level 1 Judge (yay)
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Level 1 Judge (yay)
I can see it being useful in Bant versions, setting up turn three combos, but I don't feel it's worth it just for the cycling ability.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Level 1 Judge (yay)
I see your point, but at the same time I favor the Bitter Ordeal kill.
I've been running it with Abundant Growth in a bant version. Between that and Ghost Quarter, cycling the enchantments is no problem. It makes Wargate a lot easier to cast too. My deck's similar to Jacob V's old lists.
-Terror is an emotion which, when experienced, results in death.
-The pox was a disease notorious for having killed one-third, rounded up, of Europe’s population. Smallpox, on the other hand, killed only a single person.
-A person riding a horse cannot be stopped by foot soldiers, large animals, walls, archers, or even catapults.
More facts of magic
I'm not actually playing a bant version. Ya, it has 4-8 cards but no green lands. lol
Nah. Multiple copies of KCI are useless, but you need to have one to go off, barring extraordinary circumstances; 2-3 is gonna be the right number. Tezz is an extra Reshape rather than an extra KCI, so he tutors for other stuff plenty.
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Chromatic Star
4x Conjurer's Bauble
4x Elsewhere Flask
4x Lotus Bloom
Instant
4x Faith's Reward
2x Noxious Revival
4x Second Sunrise
1x Spoils of the Vault
1x Bitter Ordeal
4x Edge of Autumn
2x Gitaxian Probe
4x Reshape
2x Wargate
Land
4x Ghost Quarter
1x Hallowed Fountain
7x Island
3x Scalding Tarn
1x Swamp
Ok this is what I am looking at right now, I have a few tweaks to make and I will post a sideboard soon.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
While it's only decent against decks like Affinity, Zoo, UWr Tempo, it is especially strong against the hyper aggro linear decks like Infect and Bogle/Auras - decks which we tend to have most issue with
Typical SB's look like this:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Bounce Spells (usually 4 Echoing Truth, sometimes a 3/1 split with Wipe Away)
2 Silence (or other such anti-control card like Spell Pierce, etc)
1 Lab Maniac
1 Pithing Needle
3 free spots - usually more bounce, enchantment removal, or other hate-rocks
I think trimming 1 Silence and 1 Bounce spell, possibly 1 of the 'free spots' for 2-3 Dispense Justice could be worthwhile for PTQ's this weekend, expecting the Bogle deck to show up a bit, perhaps 10% of the field?
my current proposed board is thus:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Echoing Truth
2 Dispense Justice
1 Silence (2 main, would consider a 3rd Dispense Justice if not much control)
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Grafdiggers Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Spellskite
1 Torpor Orb or 1 Wipe Away, unsure which I'd prefer still...
for what it's worth - I run 2 KCI, 1 Ichor, 1 Mox Opal, 2 Darksteel Citadel. So, metalcraft is a bit more likely than the pure cantrip version
thoughts?
Infect is a bigger threat than Auras because it kills faster. Infect also has a better SB against combo.
I've seen Holy Day and Leave no Trace in SBs before.
| Ad Nauseam
| Infect
Big Johnny.
Spellskite is pretty decent, but I think that Dispense Justice offers a better solution to the Aura decks.
Holy Day is not bad, but it's just a fog for a turn. Dispense actually removes the threat(s) from the board.
Leave no Trace is somewhat more effective at removing the auras, but leaves the threat in place, additionally - Rancors return and can be re-applied, which will only buy a turn or two at best.
I think a couple Dispense Justice are quite good, and so far I've been pretty happy with them in these matchups.
Spellskite lets me redirect spells?! whoa! (obviously)
You do realize that the Aura deck will have a guy with 2-3 aura's on him already by the time you get Spellskite on the board.
I mean, let's look at this realistically,.
So you have 1 Spellskite in 60 cards. You can luck into it and play it on turn 2. Hooray! Hope they don't have any removal.
Or.. more than likely, you'll be reshaping into it. On turn 4. Still hope they don't have any removal.
....
Alternatively, you could side in 2 or 3 Dispense Justice.
You can cast it on turn 3, which is usually the turn where they begin to become a large threat (8 or so power)
And when they swing with their one, or possibly two 8/8 creatures with a couple auras on each of them, you 5 for 1 them. Permanently.
so, I'm not sure which is better, hope to lucksack into a temporary and fragile solution a turn or two too late or use a permanent solution a turn faster than Spellskite. ie: the turn that it actually matters.