I hope you realize Thoughtseize and Inquisiton don't stop them from drawing Abrupt Decay? Unless you plan on Surgical Extract/Extirpate/Slaughter Games naming Abrupt Decay, you can't rely on a Scepter lock.
Who said anything about locking them out? Most of the time they won't have 2 Abrupt Decays in their hand, and they will almost never draw a second one before you can use the Scepter twice. Even if it gets destroyed, it will still be worth it if you Remanded your opponent's spells twice or Terminated 2 of their creatures.
The problem is that teachings is really expensive, and most good decks in the format aren't that vulnerable to silver bullets you could grab with it anyway. Against Jund, you're better off just playing more removal & electrolyzes. Against combo you're better off simply playing more early game disruption.
The flashback aspect of teachings is almost never relevant since you're using up all your mana each turn to deal with goyfs, lilianas, cranial platings, or holding mana up to prevent an opponent from ripping off a large revelation.
I guess I would rather just main deck more cheap library manipulation and answers that are relevant prior to turn 4 than play teachings. And at the 4 mana slot, I'd rather have cards better at gaining card advantage than a 4 mana tutor for a cryptic or removal spell.
More or less the conclusion I came to while testing. When you have the mana up, it's hard to justify spending 4 (most likely tapping out) to grab a cryptic or snapcaster or removal that they now have the knowledge to play around. Don't get me wrong, when your opponent just dropped their whole hand and you eot tutor for Consume, it's pretty sweet. Other than crippling plays like that, Teachings is lackluster in my opinion and we could probably do better in that slot.
Match 1 Grixis vs U/R delver 0-2
Well the gods of magic werent with me, both games i mulled to 5, because the hands were either all lands or spells.
Match 2 Grixis vs Bye 2-0
he didn't show up so i won
Match 3 Grixis vs Hatebears 1-1
I wont the first game eliminating and countering every single treath out on the battlefield.
Lost the second game to a ruling, so i ended up 1-1
Match 4 Grixis vs jund 1-1(official result) real result 1-2.
Since we couldn't enter the top 8 we played for fun.and i lost.
All in all i have to say that i'm pretty happy with the results( first time using it into a tournament).
I think i'm goint to change the Pillar of flame with a card with the same mc but istant( don't remember the name). Change the dreadbore with the Hero's fall.
Any help/comment/critic is welcome.
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From Supernatural:
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
====
The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
====
Dreadbore is still pretty good unless you want to tutor heros fall with teachings even then its hyper inefficient. You dont get any value killing a walker at instant speed, if I am paying more that two mana I want to kill two things at least.
So is Augur of Bolas a no go in this deck? I've been liking it but it's not at instant speed.
I haven't tested him, but I'd run Peer Through Depths if I wanted some filtering. It doesn't give you a body to throw under a Goyf, but it does dig deeper and it does so at instant speed. For me, anything I have to play at sorcery speed better be really good like Batterskull or Cruel Ultimatum. That's just me though.
So is Augur of Bolas a no go in this deck? I've been liking it but it's not at instant speed.
Not everything has to be an instant. If you have 4 mana, you can easily cast an augur, gain a blocker and card to filter with while holding up permission mana. If you play hand disruption, tapping out turn 2 after an inquisition is much safer as you know what you have to deal with, and usually will have discarded any relevant threats.
Augur is extremely helpful in dealing with Liliana of the veil as well. If you can get an attack in on Liliana, you can just bolt her to death, or swing with tar-pit to kill Liliana in one shot. Without augur, it's a much more difficult task to deal with Liliana.
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Find me online - I'm on Cockatrice * Tag - Badd B - Or on MTGO - Tag - Cbus05
Hey guys I'm looking to get into modern, and with a little help net-decking I've come up with what I think to be a decent budget control deck. Obviously I'll need shocklands for the deck and I'll work on getting that but at the moment I'd like to get some feedback and advice on how to make this better as I'm not familiar with much of the Modern cardpool, also I'd like to keep this a fairly cheap deck. Thanks in advance~!
Has anyone discussed Ashiok at all? I know she may seem like she doesn't help the overall strategy in many ways, but she has some serious potential. She provides a threat that needs to be answered immediately. In my testings, if you can untap with her, you are in an insanely strong position especially against midrange. If they focus her and try to kill immediately, then they wasted resources and turns. If they let her go, you keep building her up and "stealing' their creatures for no mana investment. You can keep mana up while taking creatures. I don't think she should be an auto-include at all, but she really can take over games.
I also know Ashiok is "genderless" but it looks like a she and it's just easier to say she instead of he/she/it.
"No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory." - Murray Rothbard, Cited from "War, Peace, and the State"
I can say my Grixis list is about 50-50 with Jund. It usually boils down to being able to answer them for the first few turns and stabilizing behind superior card advantage. Liliana of the Veil is probably the most dangerous card against us if it resolves. Sometimes they just rip your hand apart with Thoughtseize T1 on the play, sometimes you just have removal / counters for every card they play till you cast Cruel.
Hmm I'll have to proxy it up and try it. I was thinking about building UWR control but this looks like an interesting option.
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"No one may threaten or commit violence ('aggress') against another man's person or property. Violence may be employed only against the man who commits such violence; that is, only defensively against the aggressive violence of another. In short, no violence may be employed against a nonaggressor. Here is the fundamental rule from which can be deduced the entire corpus of libertarian theory." - Murray Rothbard, Cited from "War, Peace, and the State"
So, what are people's thoughts on my idea of running Isochron Scepter. With Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, we can get rid of Abrupt Decay, and even if they draw another one soon we probably will have gotten some card advantage from it.
So, what are people's thoughts on my idea of running Isochron Scepter. With Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, we can get rid of Abrupt Decay, and even if they draw another one soon we probably will have gotten some card advantage from it.
On paper, it seems like a bad idea (with rock decks being as popular as it is right now). Of course, the only way to prove whether or not it works is testing. Brew up a list that takes advantage of what Isochron Scepter has to offer and we'll see what comes of it. Who knows, you might be on to something
So, what are people's thoughts on my idea of running Isochron Scepter. With Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, we can get rid of Abrupt Decay, and even if they draw another one soon we probably will have gotten some card advantage from it.
I wouldn't bother, especially in a deck without lightning helix. There are just too many things that can go wrong with scepter in here.
I would say if you want to play scepter, you need a lot of instants and sorceries that are very strong when imprinted on it, and you probably want some # of muddle the mixtures (tutors scepters and imprint targets), and some # of academy ruins (since recursion is good). At that point, you're probably better off with a dedicated artifact control package, which starts to get away from playing more standard cruel grixis.
So, what are people's thoughts on my idea of running Isochron Scepter. With Thoughtseize and Inquisition of Kozilek, we can get rid of Abrupt Decay, and even if they draw another one soon we probably will have gotten some card advantage from it.
that would be worth a try if scepter could imprint sorceries
On a non-SpellStick topic: Has anyone tried Venser, Shaper Savant? Four mana's an awful lot, but he can do a whole lot. He can bounce a problematic permanent (screw you, Blood Moon), can "counter" The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and can then join the Snapcaster beatdown party. Just tutor him up with Teachings and then go to work.
He might be a viable sideboard option, plus I've always loved the card lol. Anyone have any experience with him?
On a non-SpellStick topic: Has anyone tried Venser, Shaper Savant? Four mana's an awful lot, but he can do a whole lot. He can bounce a problematic permanent (screw you, Blood Moon), can "counter" The Flying Spaghetti Monster, and can then join the Snapcaster beatdown party. Just tutor him up with Teachings and then go to work.
He might be a viable sideboard option, plus I've always loved the card lol. Anyone have any experience with him?
Countering emmy with him isn't a strong as you may think (they still get the time walk so they can just recast him), but I can see him coming in to act as a pseudo- mystic snake. Adding to the board while preventing a powerful play is pretty strong. Might be pretty good to bring him in with teferi against control decks as cyceron said.
Budget manabases can make good use of the buddy lands. Dragonskull Summit, Sulfur Falls, and Drowned Catacomb along with basics and/or shocks is probably the most budget effective way to go.
Actually, those cards might even be better than you think. Since we lack much of life-gain, there's an argument that one should play these instead of fetch-lands. In my deck, I have gone down to 4 fetch-lands, and I'm considering going down further.
On a side-note, I played against a combo-deck utilizing Gigadrowse. This one in particular is interesting for us in a control match-up, since we'd like to tap down our opponent's blue mana at their end-step before casting Cruel Ultimatum. Has anyone here tried it?
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Who said anything about locking them out? Most of the time they won't have 2 Abrupt Decays in their hand, and they will almost never draw a second one before you can use the Scepter twice. Even if it gets destroyed, it will still be worth it if you Remanded your opponent's spells twice or Terminated 2 of their creatures.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
More or less the conclusion I came to while testing. When you have the mana up, it's hard to justify spending 4 (most likely tapping out) to grab a cryptic or snapcaster or removal that they now have the knowledge to play around. Don't get me wrong, when your opponent just dropped their whole hand and you eot tutor for Consume, it's pretty sweet. Other than crippling plays like that, Teachings is lackluster in my opinion and we could probably do better in that slot.
3 Snapcaster Mage
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Blood Crypt
1 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Darkslick Shores
1 Dreadship Reef
2 Lavaclaw Reaches
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Steam Vents
2 Sulfur Falls
1 Sunken Ruins
2 Watery Grave
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Spells:
4 Cryptic Command
1 Devour Flesh
4 Electrolyze
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Mana Leak
3 Spell Snare
2 Cruel Ultimatum
2 Damnation
1 Dreadbore
1 Pillar of Flame
4 Serum Visions
1 Coalition Relic
1 Pithing Needle
1 Consume the Meek
2 Counterflux
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Shadow of Doubt
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
2 Sowing Salt
2 Thoughtseize
2 Vandalblast
Match 1 Grixis vs U/R delver 0-2
Well the gods of magic werent with me, both games i mulled to 5, because the hands were either all lands or spells.
Match 2 Grixis vs Bye 2-0
he didn't show up so i won
Match 3 Grixis vs Hatebears 1-1
I wont the first game eliminating and countering every single treath out on the battlefield.
Lost the second game to a ruling, so i ended up 1-1
Match 4 Grixis vs jund 1-1(official result) real result 1-2.
Since we couldn't enter the top 8 we played for fun.and i lost.
All in all i have to say that i'm pretty happy with the results( first time using it into a tournament).
I think i'm goint to change the Pillar of flame with a card with the same mc but istant( don't remember the name). Change the dreadbore with the Hero's fall.
Any help/comment/critic is welcome.
Sam: a demon summoning spell ? why?
Lucifer: to summon a demon (auto censorship here)
====
The Wizard of Oz: A juvenile delinquent runs away from home, kills the first person she meets in a foreign land, robs her corpse, then promptly forms a gang with three complete strangers in order to kill again.
====
with R i'll burn you and with B youll'be maimed
RIP Eggs
My Trade Thread
I haven't tested him, but I'd run Peer Through Depths if I wanted some filtering. It doesn't give you a body to throw under a Goyf, but it does dig deeper and it does so at instant speed. For me, anything I have to play at sorcery speed better be really good like Batterskull or Cruel Ultimatum. That's just me though.
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
Not everything has to be an instant. If you have 4 mana, you can easily cast an augur, gain a blocker and card to filter with while holding up permission mana. If you play hand disruption, tapping out turn 2 after an inquisition is much safer as you know what you have to deal with, and usually will have discarded any relevant threats.
Augur is extremely helpful in dealing with Liliana of the veil as well. If you can get an attack in on Liliana, you can just bolt her to death, or swing with tar-pit to kill Liliana in one shot. Without augur, it's a much more difficult task to deal with Liliana.
4 Augur of Bolas
3 Talrand, Sky Summoner
2 Niv Mizzet, Dracogenius
2 Snapcaster Mage
Planeswalkers (1)
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
Spells (24)
1 Counterflux
4 Mana Leak
4 Serum Visions
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Forbidden Alchemy
3 Terminate
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Dimir Guildgate
7 Island
4 Izzet Guildgate
2 Mountain
2 Nephalia Drownyard
4 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Swamp
2 Far //Away
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Rakdos Keyrune
2 Mindbreak Trap
3 Skullcrack
2 Notion Thief
2 Dreadbore
Merging this with Cruel Control thread
-ktkenshinx-
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=346889
I also know Ashiok is "genderless" but it looks like a she and it's just easier to say she instead of he/she/it.
RIP Eggs
My Trade Thread
steam vents, scalding tarn, sulfuric falls, young pyromancer and you'e $60ish off from a pretty solid deck.
EDIT* this post was moved from the budget thread to cruel control. it was about a bad grixis deck and the poster never heard of cruel control.
Hmm I'll have to proxy it up and try it. I was thinking about building UWR control but this looks like an interesting option.
Storm Crow is strictly worse than Seacoast Drake.
On paper, it seems like a bad idea (with rock decks being as popular as it is right now). Of course, the only way to prove whether or not it works is testing. Brew up a list that takes advantage of what Isochron Scepter has to offer and we'll see what comes of it. Who knows, you might be on to something
I wouldn't bother, especially in a deck without lightning helix. There are just too many things that can go wrong with scepter in here.
I played with a singleton scepter as a finisher in a thirst/shackles control deck here - http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=421889&highlight=thirst+shackles and even there it was a bit vulnerable to decays and grudges.
I would say if you want to play scepter, you need a lot of instants and sorceries that are very strong when imprinted on it, and you probably want some # of muddle the mixtures (tutors scepters and imprint targets), and some # of academy ruins (since recursion is good). At that point, you're probably better off with a dedicated artifact control package, which starts to get away from playing more standard cruel grixis.
that would be worth a try if scepter could imprint sorceries
He might be a viable sideboard option, plus I've always loved the card lol. Anyone have any experience with him?
Whatever I build from my Box-o-EDH stuff
Legacy
Sneak and Show
UR Delver
Scapeshift Nic Fit
Modern
Merfolk
Countering emmy with him isn't a strong as you may think (they still get the time walk so they can just recast him), but I can see him coming in to act as a pseudo- mystic snake. Adding to the board while preventing a powerful play is pretty strong. Might be pretty good to bring him in with teferi against control decks as cyceron said.
Actually, those cards might even be better than you think. Since we lack much of life-gain, there's an argument that one should play these instead of fetch-lands. In my deck, I have gone down to 4 fetch-lands, and I'm considering going down further.
On a side-note, I played against a combo-deck utilizing Gigadrowse. This one in particular is interesting for us in a control match-up, since we'd like to tap down our opponent's blue mana at their end-step before casting Cruel Ultimatum. Has anyone here tried it?