I love what Zac Elsik did with the combo. Great stuff, certainly one of the best takes on the deck I've seen recently. One of the only changes I'd definitely make to his list is -2 Terrarion and +2 Serum Visions. I've played this deck quite extensively and have found Terrarion to be lackluster and not nearly as helpful as the Serum Visions. Serum Visions allows for better deck manipulation which is what any combo deck wants. Also, it is never a dead card. When I tested and used Terrarion, I always felt like I needed something else when I drew the card. That shouldn't happen in this deck, there's no room for it.
I have found two sideboards- tech dawn charm and Trinket Mage
I think leyline is not our best sideboard card any more
now modern has more and more beat down deck
At draw game we will easily lose at opponent fourth turn
Naya burn is super-fast
even if infect and merfolk is slower than naya but they has some disturbance
Dawn charm has good potential
The fog effect and protection from our opponent face attack spell are both big deals against beatdown deck
Do you believe that I was defeated by Hurkyl's Recall against infect? Luckily, Hurkyls Recall targets at the player which means dawn charm can counter it
Reshape has hard time against that deck run remand, so I think side out two for Trinket Mage.
Trinket Mage has good potential too. Although he cant search lotus against midrange deck (jund) and control(grixis), mage will help us a lot
Are we short of mana? Get opal mox or Darksteel Citadel
Want some value? Get bauble or spellbomb
While doing combo, you can search out codex to win
I will test these cards this weekend
Good luck for me
I laugh when an opponent remands a Reshape. I usually am saccing an artifact that allows me to draw on the sac, so if they let me draw more cards off of it, all the better. If it's in a critical situation, we do run Swan Song MD now. At least most lists I have seen do. Plus, there is the rest of a 4x swan songs in the SB.
Leyline really does depend on the meta. I have been tossing between Leyline and Sun droplet.
My thoughts are, if you're in an aggressive creature meta, a combination of 3x sun droplet and 2x thopter foundry is a great choice. This allows you to stabilize your life total via Sun Drop, and get ahead of the aggro with thopter token blockers + life gain. It can be a hard nut to crack for aggro decks. and both will also help with burn.
If you go with this package, you would be more susceptible to discard/Jund/other combo. So to know your meta is to know your SB options.
tzykid
do you think your sideboard which has enough power against bule deck?(especially twin deck)
I defeated by 3 bule deck in a GPT today (2 twin decks)
two 1-2 one 0-2
I won a game that my opponent have not counter and won a game that swan song oppnents counter.but I lose two game that i cant get seventh mana source for cast silence and open the vault
So I will think my bule deck side tactics again Pact of Negation or Defense Grid is my candidate
Defense Grid is cheap and can disrupt twin deck greatly
Pact of Negation is reasonable card here but has less synergy than Defense Grid and expensive.
Any opinion here?
This deck is actually unplayable online.... too bad because it's awesome.
Zac I'm still confused as to how to combo off with shredder and just a lotus bloom, it doesn't get you to 9 mana. Also, does this deck fold to leyline of the void if you don't echoing it?
for MTGO play, it might be better to go with the list I posed little over a week ago. Instead of a loop like Zach's deck, it relies on either Banefire, Emrakul, or grinding station to win. They don't require any loops to be created and allow for a quick end once you have 1 of those cards in hand. simple, easy, quick death.
We can definitely play around Leyline of the void. It makes it difficult, but still doable. If you expect to see it or any GY hate, our best weapon would be the echoing truth you mentioned. Echoing stops most of the hate people would bring against us. Stony Silence, both leyline of void and of sanctity, thalia, any slew of devices to slow us down. we only need 1 turn to combo off. so play smart, bide your time and blow when you have the tools available.
Someone else want to chime in? I'm trying to think if there's another good defense against this. Echoing truth has been our go to anti-hate card as well as swan songs. any other suggestions for tackling these hate cards? In all honestly, we really shouldn't need to dedicate SB slots to hate on decks (other than burn, cause screw those guys) We just need to be concerned with G2/G3 and what we anticipate coming in against us.
@KillerSOS, I don't recall saying you could. Shredder + Reward + 1 Lotus Bloom = 3 mana but spend 9. That doesn't add up. You need to dig for a KCI to create the loop.
@tzykid, I build lists for playing at real life events not MTGO. So winning on there escaped me. I agree, I wish I could play this online to test but can't without using a different win con. Also please note, if you had a Codex Shredder in place of any of the "win cons" you listed, you could literally just create a loop then end the game.
KCI + Reward + some iterations + Banefire = most likely dead
KCI + Reward + some iterations + Emrakul = most likely dead
KCI + Reward + some iterations + Grinding Station = dead?
KCI + Reward + Codex Shredder = guaranteed dead
I don't see the argument that a single card in your 60 used to win the game couldnt just be replaced with shredder to also win the game.
tzykid
do you think your sideboard which has enough power against bule deck?(especially twin deck)
I defeated by 3 bule deck in a GPT today (2 twin decks)
two 1-2 one 0-2
I won a game that my opponent have not counter and won a game that swan song oppnents counter.but I lose two game that i cant get seventh mana source for cast silence and open the vault
So I will think my bule deck side tactics again Pact of Negation or Defense Grid is my candidate
Defense Grid is cheap and can disrupt twin deck greatly
Pact of Negation is reasonable card here but has less synergy than Defense Grid and expensive.
Any opinion here?
After playing the deck online, I like Defense Grid. I had a Twin player scoop game 2 to a resolved T2 Defense Grid; I assume she sided out the combo, so couldn't race me?
Also, I like the idea of more Serum Visions or Gitaxian Probe. Probe can with sequencing against many decks, plus dig.
I guess I'm in general agreeing that Swan Song is not helping so much against Remand into Dispel / Spell Pierce.
@shadowgripper I 100% agree with you. I wasn't saying that they would be better by any means. they strictly are not. BUT he was specifically asking about online play, and saying it was unplayable due to the loop. the addition of one of those cards as a wincon makes the deck not need infinite and therefore playable online.
And I'm going to test with defense grid in the SB to see how it affects matches against decks running heavy counter spell. It's worth looking into.
Personally I don't like Defense Grid - it costs 2 mana not 1 or 0 (Swan Song or Pact of Negation to compare) and it's an artifact so it can be destroyed by Kolaghan Command or Ancient Grudge. Sure, it can be tutored with Reshape, but most of times we don't want to waste tutor effect on soft lock, but use it to find Bloom, KCI or Wellspring for CA.
Hello all! New poster to this thread. I recently decided that I want to win games with the giant flying spaghetti monster, so I figured this deck was one of the most efficient ways to cast her. However, I was wondering how to go about getting a list together. I really don't want to shell out for Ugins while he is in Standard, so what takes his place? Can I use the Urza lands, or are they not very good?
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In my opinion, the Urza lands version of this deck isn't very good. You focus too much on finding the Tron lands and not working towards a successful combo/big spell. That version of this deck forces you to run things like Expedition Map and/or Sylvan Scrying which don't synergize as well with the combo. On the other hand, running the Reshape into Lotus Bloom version streamlines much better with the core combo (play artifacts, net mana, recur, profit).
That said, I played this deck to 5-4 at SCG Cincinnati today and my friend went 1-5 with a similar deck before giving up. I can safely say that I lost way more games to myself than to the opponent, be they misplays or fizzles or just drawing dead to start. I'll post my list and what I remember from the matches that I lost.
If you have questions about why I included certain cards, just ask. But the main deck is relatively standard as far as this deck goes; three win cons (Codex Shredder, Spellbomb, and Banefire). Banefire is the simple and easy win condition that I chose over Emrakul because Cryptic Command tapped down my Emrakul a few too many times in play testing. The Tezzerets out of the board are INSANE against the fair matchups (mostly GBx decks). Make a few 5/5s then sit back and dig for artifacts. Other sideboard cards are self-explanatory. So I'll skip over the matches that I won because none of them had anything too significant.
Round 1 vs Bloom Titan
Game 1: This guy was not a good player but I drew blank game 1. I had a few 1 mana artifacts out but didn't draw enough lands to play a KCI or a Reward. Turn 5 rolled around and I figured I had to go for it. Dug for a Reshape but never saw it. Didn't have enough mana to do anything useful and just wasted my eggs. Lost
Game 2: Lost to his turn 3 on the draw win. Nothing I could do about it.
Round 4 vs GW Hatebears
Game 1: Lost to Thalia into Scavenging Ooze.
Game 2: Won off the back of double Pyroclasm.
Game 3: Backed into a corner where I had to combo out to win. Limped through 1 Faith's Reward and 1 Open the Vaults iteration then came up blank. I drew into 2 Open the Vaults but hadn't been able to net enough mana to cast them since I had relied on Ghost Quartering my own lands to net mana off the Reward but didn't get them back on OtV. If I had drawn another Reward, I probably won.
Round 5 vs Boggles
Game 1: I confidently started going off on turn 4 while on the play and he scooped. I probably had it but he didn't bother playing it out after I got a pretty good initial Faith's Reward off.
Game 2: I made a HUGE misplay here. He goes turn 1 land, pass. Turn 2 Dryad Arbor and Ethereal Armor on the Arbor. Turn 3 Hyena Umbra WHILE I HAVE A GHOST QUARTER UP. At this point it should've been obvious he was going all in on that stupid Arbor. But I tunnel visioned in on comboing that I didn't Ghost Quarter his Dryad Arbor. Lost the game shortly after while on full tilt.
Game 3: Seriously on tilt from last game I kept a 0 land hand with a Lotus Bloom thinking I'd be golden if I drew a land. Didn't draw a land.
Round 8 vs Tron
Turns out O-stone and Karn are pretty decent. I made the mistake of tapping out for 2 Thoughtcasts hoping to hit a land when I had a few Stars and a few Spheres out. Didn't hit a land and lost my rocks to O-Stone and had no draw power.
My wins were against Jund, Junk, Zoo, Burn, and UW Emeria control list. So my big takeaways are that I need to tighten up my play and I might add a second Mox Opal in. I also think I need to mulligan a little more aggressively. Overall though, I'm happy with how I did considering I was playing eggs at a 1000+ person SCG Open.
EDIT: I think Nihil Spellbomb is something I want to work into the Side
In my opinion, the Urza lands version of this deck isn't very good. You focus too much on finding the Tron lands and not working towards a successful combo/big spell. That version of this deck forces you to run things like Expedition Map and/or Sylvan Scrying which don't synergize as well with the combo. On the other hand, running the Reshape into Lotus Bloom version streamlines much better with the core combo (play artifacts, net mana, recur, profit).
The tron version doesn't use Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map at all. It uses Ancient Stirrings, but that finds KCI, lands (for land light hands), Wellsping, or a finisher. Very versatile. It's more or less the same thing as normal eggs, just no reshape (replaced by stirrings and thirst)
The reshape version has more consistency as far as comboing off early whereas the tron version is setup more to play a longer game while threatening early game kills. Both have about the same pros and cons however so it mostly comes down to what style you like to play.
I have noticed on the MTG Goldfish stats that a couple of people playing the tron version have done quite well on the MTGO modern leagues.
The reshape version does take a bit longer to combo off, but not anymore than storm does in my opinion. I definitely wouldn't try the win con Zach is running with Codex Shredder and Bauble, but even if you go with the Pyrite Spellbomb win con my opponents normally scoop if they see that they're dead.
I've been running the Reshape version with KCI and using Banefire. It's simple, effective, and takes significantly less time to kill. I have a Codex Shredder and a Pyrite main just in case.
what card you cut out of main deck, and what cards you use of your sideboard against typical decks: Twin, Tron, Affinity, Zoo, Burn....
Assuming you're running a pretty stock main deck, I typically cut 1-2 Terrarions, 1 Reshape, 1 Island, and maybe 1 Open the Vaults on the draw. On the play I would keep the Island and Open the Vaults in and take out 1 more Reshape or a Lotus Bloom, if you're running 3-4.
For what to bring in, Tron is already a good matchup for the deck. So don't board too heavily. Ghost Quarter is good against them and I would bring in Pithing Needle and some number of Echoing truth for Relic of Progenitus.
For Twin bring in all the Silences and Defense Grid if you're running that. You need to fight through their counterspells and keep them from going off before you do.
Against Affinity and Burn there's not much. Affinity is a better matchup than Burn, but I would bring in Pyroclasm against burn if they play a lot more creatures and Echoing Truth is good against Affinity.
For Zoo you want to bring in your bounce spells. They most likely play Stony Silences in the side and those hose your deck.
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I think leyline is not our best sideboard card any more
now modern has more and more beat down deck
At draw game we will easily lose at opponent fourth turn
Naya burn is super-fast
even if infect and merfolk is slower than naya but they has some disturbance
Dawn charm has good potential
The fog effect and protection from our opponent face attack spell are both big deals against beatdown deck
Do you believe that I was defeated by Hurkyl's Recall against infect? Luckily, Hurkyls Recall targets at the player which means dawn charm can counter it
Reshape has hard time against that deck run remand, so I think side out two for Trinket Mage.
Trinket Mage has good potential too. Although he cant search lotus against midrange deck (jund) and control(grixis), mage will help us a lot
Are we short of mana? Get opal mox or Darksteel Citadel
Want some value? Get bauble or spellbomb
While doing combo, you can search out codex to win
I will test these cards this weekend
Good luck for me
What is Thopter Foundry here for? Alternative wincon?
MTGO: UberMower
Leyline really does depend on the meta. I have been tossing between Leyline and Sun droplet.
My thoughts are, if you're in an aggressive creature meta, a combination of 3x sun droplet and 2x thopter foundry is a great choice. This allows you to stabilize your life total via Sun Drop, and get ahead of the aggro with thopter token blockers + life gain. It can be a hard nut to crack for aggro decks. and both will also help with burn.
If you go with this package, you would be more susceptible to discard/Jund/other combo. So to know your meta is to know your SB options.
Currently, my SB looks like this:
2 Swan Song
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Echoing Truth
1 Pithing Needle
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Pyroclasm
1 Sun Droplet
1 AEther Spellbomb
This seems to give me a diverse enough answer to anything that may try to stop me or out-race me.
do you think your sideboard which has enough power against bule deck?(especially twin deck)
I defeated by 3 bule deck in a GPT today (2 twin decks)
two 1-2 one 0-2
I won a game that my opponent have not counter and won a game that swan song oppnents counter.but I lose two game that i cant get seventh mana source for cast silence and open the vault
So I will think my bule deck side tactics again
Pact of Negation or Defense Grid is my candidate
Defense Grid is cheap and can disrupt twin deck greatly
Pact of Negation is reasonable card here but has less synergy than Defense Grid and expensive.
Any opinion here?
Zac I'm still confused as to how to combo off with shredder and just a lotus bloom, it doesn't get you to 9 mana. Also, does this deck fold to leyline of the void if you don't echoing it?
We can definitely play around Leyline of the void. It makes it difficult, but still doable. If you expect to see it or any GY hate, our best weapon would be the echoing truth you mentioned. Echoing stops most of the hate people would bring against us. Stony Silence, both leyline of void and of sanctity, thalia, any slew of devices to slow us down. we only need 1 turn to combo off. so play smart, bide your time and blow when you have the tools available.
Someone else want to chime in? I'm trying to think if there's another good defense against this. Echoing truth has been our go to anti-hate card as well as swan songs. any other suggestions for tackling these hate cards? In all honestly, we really shouldn't need to dedicate SB slots to hate on decks (other than burn, cause screw those guys) We just need to be concerned with G2/G3 and what we anticipate coming in against us.
@tzykid, I build lists for playing at real life events not MTGO. So winning on there escaped me. I agree, I wish I could play this online to test but can't without using a different win con. Also please note, if you had a Codex Shredder in place of any of the "win cons" you listed, you could literally just create a loop then end the game.
I don't see the argument that a single card in your 60 used to win the game couldnt just be replaced with shredder to also win the game.
After playing the deck online, I like Defense Grid. I had a Twin player scoop game 2 to a resolved T2 Defense Grid; I assume she sided out the combo, so couldn't race me?
Also, I like the idea of more Serum Visions or Gitaxian Probe. Probe can with sequencing against many decks, plus dig.
I guess I'm in general agreeing that Swan Song is not helping so much against Remand into Dispel / Spell Pierce.
And I'm going to test with defense grid in the SB to see how it affects matches against decks running heavy counter spell. It's worth looking into.
That said, I played this deck to 5-4 at SCG Cincinnati today and my friend went 1-5 with a similar deck before giving up. I can safely say that I lost way more games to myself than to the opponent, be they misplays or fizzles or just drawing dead to start. I'll post my list and what I remember from the matches that I lost.
4x Ghost Quarter
4x Darksteel Citadel
2x Flooded Strand
4x Island
2x Plains
Artifacts
4x Chromatic Star
4x Chromatic Sphere
4x Conjurer's Bauble
4x Krark-Clan Ironworks
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Lotus Bloom
1x Mox Opal
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
1x Codex Shredder
4x Reshape
4x Faith's Reward
3x Open the Vaults
2x Thoughtcast
2x Edge of Autumn
1x Banefire
1x Noxious Revival
2x Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas
2x Pyroclasm
2x Erase
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1x Aether Spellbomb
2x Echoing Truth
4x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Bitter Ordeal
If you have questions about why I included certain cards, just ask. But the main deck is relatively standard as far as this deck goes; three win cons (Codex Shredder, Spellbomb, and Banefire). Banefire is the simple and easy win condition that I chose over Emrakul because Cryptic Command tapped down my Emrakul a few too many times in play testing. The Tezzerets out of the board are INSANE against the fair matchups (mostly GBx decks). Make a few 5/5s then sit back and dig for artifacts. Other sideboard cards are self-explanatory. So I'll skip over the matches that I won because none of them had anything too significant.
Round 1 vs Bloom Titan
Game 1: This guy was not a good player but I drew blank game 1. I had a few 1 mana artifacts out but didn't draw enough lands to play a KCI or a Reward. Turn 5 rolled around and I figured I had to go for it. Dug for a Reshape but never saw it. Didn't have enough mana to do anything useful and just wasted my eggs. Lost
Game 2: Lost to his turn 3 on the draw win. Nothing I could do about it.
Round 4 vs GW Hatebears
Game 1: Lost to Thalia into Scavenging Ooze.
Game 2: Won off the back of double Pyroclasm.
Game 3: Backed into a corner where I had to combo out to win. Limped through 1 Faith's Reward and 1 Open the Vaults iteration then came up blank. I drew into 2 Open the Vaults but hadn't been able to net enough mana to cast them since I had relied on Ghost Quartering my own lands to net mana off the Reward but didn't get them back on OtV. If I had drawn another Reward, I probably won.
Round 5 vs Boggles
Game 1: I confidently started going off on turn 4 while on the play and he scooped. I probably had it but he didn't bother playing it out after I got a pretty good initial Faith's Reward off.
Game 2: I made a HUGE misplay here. He goes turn 1 land, pass. Turn 2 Dryad Arbor and Ethereal Armor on the Arbor. Turn 3 Hyena Umbra WHILE I HAVE A GHOST QUARTER UP. At this point it should've been obvious he was going all in on that stupid Arbor. But I tunnel visioned in on comboing that I didn't Ghost Quarter his Dryad Arbor. Lost the game shortly after while on full tilt.
Game 3: Seriously on tilt from last game I kept a 0 land hand with a Lotus Bloom thinking I'd be golden if I drew a land. Didn't draw a land.
Round 8 vs Tron
Turns out O-stone and Karn are pretty decent. I made the mistake of tapping out for 2 Thoughtcasts hoping to hit a land when I had a few Stars and a few Spheres out. Didn't hit a land and lost my rocks to O-Stone and had no draw power.
My wins were against Jund, Junk, Zoo, Burn, and UW Emeria control list. So my big takeaways are that I need to tighten up my play and I might add a second Mox Opal in. I also think I need to mulligan a little more aggressively. Overall though, I'm happy with how I did considering I was playing eggs at a 1000+ person SCG Open.
EDIT: I think Nihil Spellbomb is something I want to work into the Side
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/modern-krark-clan-ironworks/
The tron version doesn't use Sylvan Scrying or Expedition Map at all. It uses Ancient Stirrings, but that finds KCI, lands (for land light hands), Wellsping, or a finisher. Very versatile. It's more or less the same thing as normal eggs, just no reshape (replaced by stirrings and thirst)
I have noticed on the MTG Goldfish stats that a couple of people playing the tron version have done quite well on the MTGO modern leagues.
Assuming you're running a pretty stock main deck, I typically cut 1-2 Terrarions, 1 Reshape, 1 Island, and maybe 1 Open the Vaults on the draw. On the play I would keep the Island and Open the Vaults in and take out 1 more Reshape or a Lotus Bloom, if you're running 3-4.
For what to bring in, Tron is already a good matchup for the deck. So don't board too heavily. Ghost Quarter is good against them and I would bring in Pithing Needle and some number of Echoing truth for Relic of Progenitus.
For Twin bring in all the Silences and Defense Grid if you're running that. You need to fight through their counterspells and keep them from going off before you do.
Against Affinity and Burn there's not much. Affinity is a better matchup than Burn, but I would bring in Pyroclasm against burn if they play a lot more creatures and Echoing Truth is good against Affinity.
For Zoo you want to bring in your bounce spells. They most likely play Stony Silences in the side and those hose your deck.