3 twin is ok but you loose the probability of comboing faster against match were combo is almonst the only way to win (rg tron, bloom titan, and burn). I've got the same problematic of playing only 5 tapers instead of of 6. On another hand, in many other match up, you prefer to have less twin so this choice is more a meta call.
Magus of the moon vs blood moon : Ok for RG tron and bloom titan, magus is better in our side. The problem i have with that is that i can't play magus against a lot of other deck, or magus is really less relevant (abzan, abzan company, UWR control or midrange). I'm still not sure that to play magus is a better choice in a n open meta as WMCQ.
grave titan VS thundermaw hellkite. The 2 black seems difficult in my deck were i ply only 3 black souces (1 swamp, 1 watery grave, 1 blood crypt). If you play it against jund were they have fulminator mage, control were they have deck edge, it could bee really hard to cast. Thundermaw is easier to cast but takes all removal except decay. I don't know wich is better
I agree about the number of Twin being a meta/preference call mostly. I personally just would rather have the combo right now as often as possible, which is why I think a 6/4 split is ideal. But if you expect a grindy meta, slimming down to 3 Twin and maybe 4-5 tappers is perfectly acceptable.
I'd give Magus of the Moon a second thought. I wouldn't call it less relevant against the decks you listed, just more fragile. But on the plus side, if they are using Path or Dismember to kill it, you are gaining something out of the exchange anyway, and you also get your lands back too, which can be nice sometimes. Also, if they are killing your Magus, it's one less kill spell they might have for your Combo.
2 Blood Moon is probably safer if you aren't sure though. Blood Moon is certainly a harder lock against many decks that struggle to deal with this type of effect. Again, I was mostly suggesting Magus as a way to hedge against the BIG two land-based combos, and to slightly accommodate my greedy inclusion of Grave Titan as my anti-BGx bullet.
And on that note, you definitely need more than those 3 sources to support Titan. I run:
Plus the 8 fetches, so I'm more than able to hit double black even in the face of a single LD effect. Multiple LD spells would be problematic, but we're talking huge variance here. They need to have it the same game you draw Titan, they need to aim for your black sources instead of the red ones, etc. Running Grave Titan in general is a risk, simply as a 6-mana spell it can be hard to cast, but in my experience it simply crushes grindy matchups while also stabilizing you better than almost anything else available, so to me it's worth the risk of having it rot in hand occasionally. And often you can pitch it to opposing discard or lighthouse anyway. He's far from a mainstay in the board, but so far in testing I've loved it. But I totally understand opting for less mana intensive threats. Thundermaw is a decent option, but I'd probably just play a 2nd Keranos for consistency at that point. Being unkillable is a big deal from your 5 mana threat. I'll discuss Titan a bit more down below in response to Gul_D though...
wurmcoil engine is better than both in most circumstances.
lingering souls has not disappeared at all.
and UR twin is not reliant on the combo.
I would argue that Titan is better than Wurmcoil actually. Hellkite is a much different card than the 6-drops. Hellkite is much more fragile to standard removal, but it's a faster attacker and does do some work against certain decks.
But let's discuss Titan vs. Wurm. For starters, Kolaghan's Command is still everywhere, and while having the two halves of Wurmcoil sticking around isn't terrible, it's still pretty bad to lose your huge 6-drop threat to one of the most notorious 2-for-1s in the format. Snapcaster + Kommand means that they can easily deal with the tokens too on the backside, leaving you with nothing but a big mana exchange. Also, we are a Twin deck, so a lot of opponents are already bringing in Disenchants against us, some of which exile the card (Unravel the Aether as an example), which means Wurm gets hit by all sorts of other splash damage too.
Now, stabilization-wise, I actually think Wurm and Titan are pretty close. If your opponent is going wide, Titan is likely better as it creates more blockers and they can't simply bolt their own guy to negate the lifelink, and you are also more likely to eat more of their team on an alpha strike. If they are going big, than you can use the chump blockers to stop the biggest lethal threats from killing you, while again eating a smaller-than-6/6 threat with the Titan. Meanwhile, if you untap with Titan, you basically will have endless chump blockers while also pressuring them with a huge 6/6 coming their way. Wurm only makes friends on his way out. Titan churns them out regardless. The biggest thing in my opinion though is that Titan is a much faster closer. Wurm is a 6/6 that they can easily chump for days or keep at bay with other means. But Titan comes down with 10 power the first turn, and leaves you with 14 power once he attacks. That's nearly double the pressure as Wurm.
For all these reasons, I chose Titan. Wurm is probably the more conservative choice, and if it wasn't for Kolaghan's Command I would be much more likely to run it instead, but I like the greedier pick right now. Aside from a few situations where you really need the lifelink to stabilize, I think Grave Titan is the stronger card, especially against the decks where you want this effect (Jund, Grixis, etc).
I'm not sure who you were responding to about UR Twin relying on the combo. But, they are certainly more reliant on it than we are. They can nickel and dime, yes, but if someone presents a huge threat they can't really deal with it, and they don't have nearly as many noncombo win conditions as us. In general, UR Twin is much less threat-dense than Grixis, so yes I would say they are more reliant on the combo than 3-color Twin decks. They can still win without it, and often do, but they still lean on the combo plan a lot more than us.
As for Jace vs. Lingering Souls, I'll say two things. First, I agree that Souls hasn't "disappeared". It's not the most popular card in Modern right now, but it's still around. Second though, I don't think it matters. Jace is a great threat against a lot of decks, not just ones packing Spirit Tokens in their deck box. He does a lot of work against any aggro deck going wide, especially Affinity Elves Goblins and all the CoCo decks that have surged up lately. He's also still amazing against Jund, Grixis, and any other grindy match. If they have threats, even if they are big ones, you can generally +1 him to buy time and still protect him for a turn. If you can protect him though, or you suspect they can deal with him, -2ing him immediately for value is still a big game. But the time they deal with him, you've had plenty of time to set up another problem for them to solve.
So @DelverBlue: Jace, Architect of Thought is still a very valuable SB card, even without the expectation of facing Lingering Souls. He's certainly not the first card I would cut from my board.
At this point I would rather have a second keranos than the first jace, keranos is much less fragile and much more agressive. If I want something for defense, staticaster is an absolute slam dunk when he is good, so is anger. Jace has never been the same kind of windmill-slam outside of souls (which has completely fallen out of my local meta).
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I think Jace and Staticaster are quite different in terms of Sideboard space. While Jace does have some relevance against 1/1 creatures, he's more of a grindy card for grindy matchups. He happens to be good against decks with spirits and the like such as Esper, Junk, and Tokens, but he's also good against a variety of other grindy matchups (namely Jund, Grixis, the mirror, etc. The reason I would choose Jace over Staticaster is because the slot I'm dedicating to Jace is for those grindy matchups. The slots I dedicated to killing small dudes are the 1 Pyroclasm/1 Anger/1 E.E. split. Those are the slots I would look to put Staticaster into, not the Jace spot.
My problem with Staticaster is that he's very narrow. He doesn't do anything unless your opponent has an x/1 in play, and he's not that impressive unless they have multiple x/1s. He's great against Affinity, Elves, and Token-centric decks, and obviously does work against a few other archetypes, but in my opinion the Sweepers are just more reliable for those roles. Pyroclasm/Anger get snapped back for lategame reuse, and they also hit a lot of things that Staticaster can't deal with. EE is similar, and it's my hedge against other random aggro decks like Bogles and Merfolk. If my meta was flooded with x/1s, I'd play staticaster. But in an open meta, the sweepers are just safer bets in my opinion.
Jace just happens to have some relevance against those decks, but again, that's not why he's there. He's there to give me card selection and advantage in any sort of long game. Like Keranos, if he sticks around long enough he'll generate insane card advantage, but even if you think you'll lose him immediately you can still get 3 cards out of him, or 2 cards and a Fog. He's not AS good as Keranos when you are already stable and trying to close the game, and he's not exactly a wincon by himself, but he's a much better jack-of-all trades than Keranos is. If you're digging for the combo, facing down a host of attackers, or just trying to grind out some extra cards, Jace is useful. Keranos can't do all those things, and his extra cost means he's coming down later in the game too.
I like the split of Jace/Keranos/Grave Titan as my grindy threats. Having a split means I get overlap into other matchups, like the fact that Jace isn't horrid against Tribal/Token decks, but still shines against Jund. Or the fact that I can bring Titan in against CoCo-style creature decks as a way to stabilize, even though he's really meant for the mirrors and BGx as well. Hell, I even brought him in against Tron and actually won the game with him once, despite the fact that it probably wasn't optimal.
Anyway, the point is, splitting your threats helps cover multiple bases. And Jace isn't suddenly useless even if Lingering Souls is unexpectedly absent from your local scene. He's meant to grind, and his -2 is what defines the card, not the +1. But even against Goyfs and Tasigurs, the +1 is still surprisingly relevant. And in the mirror. And against Pyro/Mentor tokens. Et cetera. But I play him for the -2 value.
I wouldn't fault anyone for playing 2 Keranos instead of a Jace/Keranos split. Keranos is definitely more of a windmill slam type card. But I've lost games with Keranos in play, simply because he can still be slow, or the fact that he doesn't do much for you when your opponent has multiple large threats in play still. Jace can dig you into a Terminate or Cryptic there, or simply buy another turn. Grave Titan puts down 10 power of toughness. Keranos is just a blank enchantment until your next draw step. And drawing the second copy while the first is in play is a thing that can happen. Hence, the split.
Anyway, to each their own. Staticaster has seen plenty of play in Twin decks, and absolutely crushes stuff like Affinity. And Jace is far from a mainstay.
@Sxnr1se, I haven't been playing too much the past few weeks either due to joining a soccer (calcio) league. But the last time I played the deck I top 8ed a PPTQ with it, and had a good chance at winning if I didn't punt against Goblins in the QuarterFinals. The deck hasn't seen as much success lately on the SCG circuit, but it's still fine. I'll be testing it as my primary deck choice in preparation for GP Pittsburgh in November. The other two decks I will be working on for that event are Jund/Junk and RUG Twin. In Modern, play what you know.
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Here's one more vote for Olivia Voldaren. Thundermaw might be better in a heavy Abzan field, but Olivia is much stronger vs. Jund and random CoCo decks.
voldaren is better if you expect a meta with elves, coco, affinity, etc.
hellkite is better if you expect a meta with more BGx, grixis and UWx. I would argue that hellkite is better against the twin variants as well.
This does not mean olivia is bad against jund or anything I'm just comparing the two n a vacuum.
overall in terms of versatility olivia is better i feel because in the bgx/grixis/uwx/twin matchups she still threatens to take over the game even though hellkite is better at closing. hellkite is better against these decks, but a bit narrower.
Do you really need that 1x Discard card in the SB? I'm planning to try out Grixis Twin and would like to minimize my expense as much as possible, Thoughtseize is quite expensive.
Also, I don't have yet Scalding Tarn but I do have a playset of the Bloodstained, Misty and Polluted. What would you advise be the breakdown of my fetches until I acquire the Scalding Tarn playset? Thanks a bunch.
Do you really need that 1x Discard card in the SB? I'm planning to try out Grixis Twin and would like to minimize my expense as much as possible, Thoughtseize is quite expensive.
Also, I don't have yet Scalding Tarn but I do have a playset of the Bloodstained, Misty and Polluted. What would you advise be the breakdown of my fetches until I acquire the Scalding Tarn playset? Thanks a bunch.
Thoughtseize is not required at all. Feel free to fill in that slot with anything else.
Honestly I don't think your fetches will impact your win% that much. Just play a playset of Polluted and then probably Misty is a better choice since it allows you to fetch islands to counter without shocking yourself.
Thanks for the reply, won't include the Thoughtseize in my SB or will just use Duress if I feel that I need the discard in our meta. Things would have been easier if I had a Scalding Tarn set.
May I also ask what is the ideal # of K. Command and Terminate in the deck? (counting both those in MB and SB) What is our other win-con post board, Keranos, Olivia, Grave Titan, etc?
So it seems like [Jace, Vryn's Prodigy] is gaining popularity within the SCG open series. This past week both of the Grixis variants that got into the Top-32 were running a few copies each.(One of them being the one Magix posted, which has a very proactive plan). However, it seems like it hasn't caught up anywhere else yet.
The deck did pretty decent in last week's WMCQs and got several Top-8s accross different Metagames. It's also worth noticing that none of the decklists was running a single copy of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy.
I think that the fact that he needs mostly sorcery speed spells gets overlooked. I'm not so sure that I'd want to switch out Remands, Dispels, and/or Snares for him, but it's certainly something to ponder about.
You could play Magus of the Moon instead. I know GerryT had some success online with it since everyone was bringing in enchantment hate to deal with Blood Moon.
Personally I think that there's no reason to not keep running Blood Moon because them not having a response is still lights out. Plus if they have enchantment hate and use it on your Blood Moon you can just untap and Twin them the next turn.
Can someone here tell me what the 75 should look like? I am having trouble parsing all of this information into one list. I tried to build it on my own last night, and I couldn't figure out what to play and what to cut. Basically I'm asking for a community net deck.
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"Play to have fun, it's a game."
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
You have 3 slots that tend to be very flexible and can go from Vendilion Clique to Dispel/Spell Snare and/or a 3rd removal spell.
The percentages in Mtggoldfish aren't exactly a representation of what a stock list usually looks like, but they give you a good idea of what spells are common in the deck:
You move them to the board if you expect for the metagame to be a bunch of combo or creature based aggro decks. The card is good, but it can be a nombo sometimes. Nothing feels worse than drawing a Tasigur with a Splinter Twin in hand when you're trying to race your opponent.
As an example take into consideration the top8 of the last SCG open. Your archetypes were:
Infect
Infect
Affinity
Merfolk
Affinity
U/w Control
Splinter Twin
CoCo Slivers
If you expect a metagame that resembles this top8 you would probably side out Tasigur and try to combo off Asap in 6 out of the 8 matches, so it would be in your best interest to have them on your board and bring them in against your grindy matchups rather than having them in and siding them out all the time since against most of the other archtypes he's going to be mediocre.
You move them to the board if you expect for the metagame to be a bunch of combo or creature based aggro decks. The card is good, but it can be a nombo sometimes. Nothing feels worse than drawing a Tasigur with a Splinter Twin in hand when you're trying to race your opponent.
As an example take into consideration the top8 of the last SCG open. Your archetypes were:
Infect
Infect
Affinity
Merfolk
Affinity
U/w Control
Splinter Twin
CoCo Slivers
If you expect a metagame that resembles this top8 you would probably side out Tasigur and try to combo off Asap in 6 out of the 8 matches, so it would be in your best interest to have them on your board and bring them in against your grindy matchups rather than having them in and siding them out all the time since against most of the other archtypes he's going to be mediocre.
I'm relatively new to modern and I was wondering about the card selection:
_Do you play discard (2 to 3 Inquisitions of Kozilek) in a meta where combo is prevalent? When do you usually want to play discard mainboard ?
_What is your recomendation for a meta with lots of robots/affinity, burn/rdw, grixis delver and a few merfolk decks?
I mean, do I focus on the combo by playing a straight U/R twin deck with a few more cycle (sleight of hand)? or just by keeping Tasigur/Vendilion Clique on the SB and adding more removal to the main deck is enough?
_How do you build your decks around certain local metas? (like a very aggro meta, or a tron/combo centric meta).
Thanks in advance ~
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WUGeist of Saint TraftUW UTalrand PolymorphishU UAzami, Lady of CAU BRWZurgo, Worldslayer BearerWRB BWUMerieke Ri Berit UWB UVendilion CliqueU
Modern:U Mono-U TroN U
Is it possible to build a mana base using mostly the Khans fetch? I don't have access to playsets of the old ones and wonder if something like 4 Polluted Delta, 4 Bloodstained Mire and 1 Scalding Tarn would be ok as the fetch suite.
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I agree about the number of Twin being a meta/preference call mostly. I personally just would rather have the combo right now as often as possible, which is why I think a 6/4 split is ideal. But if you expect a grindy meta, slimming down to 3 Twin and maybe 4-5 tappers is perfectly acceptable.
I'd give Magus of the Moon a second thought. I wouldn't call it less relevant against the decks you listed, just more fragile. But on the plus side, if they are using Path or Dismember to kill it, you are gaining something out of the exchange anyway, and you also get your lands back too, which can be nice sometimes. Also, if they are killing your Magus, it's one less kill spell they might have for your Combo.
2 Blood Moon is probably safer if you aren't sure though. Blood Moon is certainly a harder lock against many decks that struggle to deal with this type of effect. Again, I was mostly suggesting Magus as a way to hedge against the BIG two land-based combos, and to slightly accommodate my greedy inclusion of Grave Titan as my anti-BGx bullet.
And on that note, you definitely need more than those 3 sources to support Titan. I run:
1 Darkslick
1 Catacomb
1 Tar Pit
1 Grave
1 Crypt
1 Swamp
Plus the 8 fetches, so I'm more than able to hit double black even in the face of a single LD effect. Multiple LD spells would be problematic, but we're talking huge variance here. They need to have it the same game you draw Titan, they need to aim for your black sources instead of the red ones, etc. Running Grave Titan in general is a risk, simply as a 6-mana spell it can be hard to cast, but in my experience it simply crushes grindy matchups while also stabilizing you better than almost anything else available, so to me it's worth the risk of having it rot in hand occasionally. And often you can pitch it to opposing discard or lighthouse anyway. He's far from a mainstay in the board, but so far in testing I've loved it. But I totally understand opting for less mana intensive threats. Thundermaw is a decent option, but I'd probably just play a 2nd Keranos for consistency at that point. Being unkillable is a big deal from your 5 mana threat. I'll discuss Titan a bit more down below in response to Gul_D though...
I would argue that Titan is better than Wurmcoil actually. Hellkite is a much different card than the 6-drops. Hellkite is much more fragile to standard removal, but it's a faster attacker and does do some work against certain decks.
But let's discuss Titan vs. Wurm. For starters, Kolaghan's Command is still everywhere, and while having the two halves of Wurmcoil sticking around isn't terrible, it's still pretty bad to lose your huge 6-drop threat to one of the most notorious 2-for-1s in the format. Snapcaster + Kommand means that they can easily deal with the tokens too on the backside, leaving you with nothing but a big mana exchange. Also, we are a Twin deck, so a lot of opponents are already bringing in Disenchants against us, some of which exile the card (Unravel the Aether as an example), which means Wurm gets hit by all sorts of other splash damage too.
Now, stabilization-wise, I actually think Wurm and Titan are pretty close. If your opponent is going wide, Titan is likely better as it creates more blockers and they can't simply bolt their own guy to negate the lifelink, and you are also more likely to eat more of their team on an alpha strike. If they are going big, than you can use the chump blockers to stop the biggest lethal threats from killing you, while again eating a smaller-than-6/6 threat with the Titan. Meanwhile, if you untap with Titan, you basically will have endless chump blockers while also pressuring them with a huge 6/6 coming their way. Wurm only makes friends on his way out. Titan churns them out regardless. The biggest thing in my opinion though is that Titan is a much faster closer. Wurm is a 6/6 that they can easily chump for days or keep at bay with other means. But Titan comes down with 10 power the first turn, and leaves you with 14 power once he attacks. That's nearly double the pressure as Wurm.
For all these reasons, I chose Titan. Wurm is probably the more conservative choice, and if it wasn't for Kolaghan's Command I would be much more likely to run it instead, but I like the greedier pick right now. Aside from a few situations where you really need the lifelink to stabilize, I think Grave Titan is the stronger card, especially against the decks where you want this effect (Jund, Grixis, etc).
I'm not sure who you were responding to about UR Twin relying on the combo. But, they are certainly more reliant on it than we are. They can nickel and dime, yes, but if someone presents a huge threat they can't really deal with it, and they don't have nearly as many noncombo win conditions as us. In general, UR Twin is much less threat-dense than Grixis, so yes I would say they are more reliant on the combo than 3-color Twin decks. They can still win without it, and often do, but they still lean on the combo plan a lot more than us.
As for Jace vs. Lingering Souls, I'll say two things. First, I agree that Souls hasn't "disappeared". It's not the most popular card in Modern right now, but it's still around. Second though, I don't think it matters. Jace is a great threat against a lot of decks, not just ones packing Spirit Tokens in their deck box. He does a lot of work against any aggro deck going wide, especially Affinity Elves Goblins and all the CoCo decks that have surged up lately. He's also still amazing against Jund, Grixis, and any other grindy match. If they have threats, even if they are big ones, you can generally +1 him to buy time and still protect him for a turn. If you can protect him though, or you suspect they can deal with him, -2ing him immediately for value is still a big game. But the time they deal with him, you've had plenty of time to set up another problem for them to solve.
So @DelverBlue: Jace, Architect of Thought is still a very valuable SB card, even without the expectation of facing Lingering Souls. He's certainly not the first card I would cut from my board.
RGB Jund BGR
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LEGACY
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BBB Skithiryx Control BB
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Standard Competitive MemberIt was not delight, not wonder that arose among us, it was the peace of heaven. He who has thought most deeply loves what is most alive. - Friedrich Holderlin
1907 Constructed Rating on Magic Online.
My problem with Staticaster is that he's very narrow. He doesn't do anything unless your opponent has an x/1 in play, and he's not that impressive unless they have multiple x/1s. He's great against Affinity, Elves, and Token-centric decks, and obviously does work against a few other archetypes, but in my opinion the Sweepers are just more reliable for those roles. Pyroclasm/Anger get snapped back for lategame reuse, and they also hit a lot of things that Staticaster can't deal with. EE is similar, and it's my hedge against other random aggro decks like Bogles and Merfolk. If my meta was flooded with x/1s, I'd play staticaster. But in an open meta, the sweepers are just safer bets in my opinion.
Jace just happens to have some relevance against those decks, but again, that's not why he's there. He's there to give me card selection and advantage in any sort of long game. Like Keranos, if he sticks around long enough he'll generate insane card advantage, but even if you think you'll lose him immediately you can still get 3 cards out of him, or 2 cards and a Fog. He's not AS good as Keranos when you are already stable and trying to close the game, and he's not exactly a wincon by himself, but he's a much better jack-of-all trades than Keranos is. If you're digging for the combo, facing down a host of attackers, or just trying to grind out some extra cards, Jace is useful. Keranos can't do all those things, and his extra cost means he's coming down later in the game too.
I like the split of Jace/Keranos/Grave Titan as my grindy threats. Having a split means I get overlap into other matchups, like the fact that Jace isn't horrid against Tribal/Token decks, but still shines against Jund. Or the fact that I can bring Titan in against CoCo-style creature decks as a way to stabilize, even though he's really meant for the mirrors and BGx as well. Hell, I even brought him in against Tron and actually won the game with him once, despite the fact that it probably wasn't optimal.
Anyway, the point is, splitting your threats helps cover multiple bases. And Jace isn't suddenly useless even if Lingering Souls is unexpectedly absent from your local scene. He's meant to grind, and his -2 is what defines the card, not the +1. But even against Goyfs and Tasigurs, the +1 is still surprisingly relevant. And in the mirror. And against Pyro/Mentor tokens. Et cetera. But I play him for the -2 value.
I wouldn't fault anyone for playing 2 Keranos instead of a Jace/Keranos split. Keranos is definitely more of a windmill slam type card. But I've lost games with Keranos in play, simply because he can still be slow, or the fact that he doesn't do much for you when your opponent has multiple large threats in play still. Jace can dig you into a Terminate or Cryptic there, or simply buy another turn. Grave Titan puts down 10 power of toughness. Keranos is just a blank enchantment until your next draw step. And drawing the second copy while the first is in play is a thing that can happen. Hence, the split.
Anyway, to each their own. Staticaster has seen plenty of play in Twin decks, and absolutely crushes stuff like Affinity. And Jace is far from a mainstay.
@Sxnr1se, I haven't been playing too much the past few weeks either due to joining a soccer (calcio) league. But the last time I played the deck I top 8ed a PPTQ with it, and had a good chance at winning if I didn't punt against Goblins in the QuarterFinals. The deck hasn't seen as much success lately on the SCG circuit, but it's still fine. I'll be testing it as my primary deck choice in preparation for GP Pittsburgh in November. The other two decks I will be working on for that event are Jund/Junk and RUG Twin. In Modern, play what you know.
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB
RGB Jund BGR
WGB Junk/Abzan Company WGB
LEGACY
RUGB Delver GURB
EDH
UW Geist of Saint Traft Aggro-Control WU
RUG Riku of Two Reflections Combo GUR
BBB Skithiryx Control BB
hellkite is better if you expect a meta with more BGx, grixis and UWx. I would argue that hellkite is better against the twin variants as well.
This does not mean olivia is bad against jund or anything I'm just comparing the two n a vacuum.
overall in terms of versatility olivia is better i feel because in the bgx/grixis/uwx/twin matchups she still threatens to take over the game even though hellkite is better at closing. hellkite is better against these decks, but a bit narrower.
Also, I don't have yet Scalding Tarn but I do have a playset of the Bloodstained, Misty and Polluted. What would you advise be the breakdown of my fetches until I acquire the Scalding Tarn playset? Thanks a bunch.
Thanks for the reply, won't include the Thoughtseize in my SB or will just use Duress if I feel that I need the discard in our meta. Things would have been easier if I had a Scalding Tarn set.
May I also ask what is the ideal # of K. Command and Terminate in the deck? (counting both those in MB and SB) What is our other win-con post board, Keranos, Olivia, Grave Titan, etc?
The deck did pretty decent in last week's WMCQs and got several Top-8s accross different Metagames. It's also worth noticing that none of the decklists was running a single copy of Jace, Vryn's Prodigy.
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10424&d=259633&f=MO
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10432&d=259710&f=MO
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10430&d=259694&f=MO
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10441&d=259751&f=MO
http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=10424&d=259632&f=MO
URBURB
URBURB
Personally I think that there's no reason to not keep running Blood Moon because them not having a response is still lights out. Plus if they have enchantment hate and use it on your Blood Moon you can just untap and Twin them the next turn.
URBURB
"I do have fun. Winning is fun."
Modern URB Grixis Shadow
EDH URG Animar
4 Deceiver Exarch
2 Pestermite
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
Spells(22):
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Serum Visions
4 Remand
2 Cryptic Command
2 Terminate
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Splinter Twin
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Steam Vents
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
3 Sulfur Falls
1 Desolate Lighthouse
4 Island
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
You have 3 slots that tend to be very flexible and can go from Vendilion Clique to Dispel/Spell Snare and/or a 3rd removal spell.
The percentages in Mtggoldfish aren't exactly a representation of what a stock list usually looks like, but they give you a good idea of what spells are common in the deck:
http://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetype/modern-splinter-twin-20808#online
URBURB
UR Twin - RIP
As an example take into consideration the top8 of the last SCG open. Your archetypes were:
Infect
Infect
Affinity
Merfolk
Affinity
U/w Control
Splinter Twin
CoCo Slivers
If you expect a metagame that resembles this top8 you would probably side out Tasigur and try to combo off Asap in 6 out of the 8 matches, so it would be in your best interest to have them on your board and bring them in against your grindy matchups rather than having them in and siding them out all the time since against most of the other archtypes he's going to be mediocre.
URBURB
tks for the info mate...i'll considerer that..!!
UR Twin - RIP
_Do you play discard (2 to 3 Inquisitions of Kozilek) in a meta where combo is prevalent? When do you usually want to play discard mainboard ?
_What is your recomendation for a meta with lots of robots/affinity, burn/rdw, grixis delver and a few merfolk decks?
I mean, do I focus on the combo by playing a straight U/R twin deck with a few more cycle (sleight of hand)? or just by keeping Tasigur/Vendilion Clique on the SB and adding more removal to the main deck is enough?
_How do you build your decks around certain local metas? (like a very aggro meta, or a tron/combo centric meta).
Thanks in advance ~
URGBOops all my spellsBGRU
URBYoung GrixisBRU
~Commander~
BUDralnu/ReanimatorUB
GRUMaelstroM WanderiNgURG
GBMerengue Clan of SalsaBG
UTalrand PolymorphishU
UAzami, Lady of CAU
BRWZurgo, Worldslayer BearerWRB
BWUMerieke Ri Berit UWB
UVendilion CliqueU
Modern:U Mono-U TroN U