Disdainful Stroke sideboard. Now we have a real game on our hands.
I'll disagree with the statement that the Twin ban caused this. Twin can't beat a T1 Thought-Knot Seer followed by a T2 Thought-Knot Seer, followed by a T3 6/6 Endless One.
Last time abzan predominance was very different because more than half abzan players were not playing junk style of decks but a sort of high value creature mix as a consecuence of pod getting banned. We didn't had that with the loss of twin as very few playeres jumped to jeskai control and blue moon style of decks. Last year abzan podless players tranformed their deck in to the current CoCo lists (a few remained abzan liege). Eldrazis on the other side are a whole new archetype, perhaps it will slow down but just because I think a lot of players already feel there might be a ban incoming. Personally I think the deck is going to become more predominant as there are a lot of spikes who want to win.
Ultimately went 6-2-1. Pretty pleased with the deck overall, but I definitely had some luck with the pairing.
Round 1: Burn 2-1
G1: Lost really close. Opponent was at 2 when I lost. We missed a goblin guide trigger that would have had me winning, but I wasn't too salty about it.
G2 and 3: Both went pretty similarly. Double snap, double helix and a finks + resto got there pretty easily.
Round 2 Infect 2-1
G1: Just didn't let any creature survive. Made sure I killed every threat as soon as it showed up. I had exactly the right amount of removal to get there.
G2: Good draw from him. I didn't have enough to fight him off.
G3: Pretty similar to game 1. Just grabbed control of the game and didn't let up.
Round 3: GB Eldrazi 0-2
Only Eldrazi deck I faced the whole tournament. Not even close. Thought Knot Seer and 4 Worldbreakers just shut me down. Wasn't even fun.
Round 4: Soul Sisters Tokens 1-1-1
G1: Lost in a looooong grindy game. Finished with about 12 minutes left
G2: Won very quickly. Just quick burn and restos
G3: Winning decisively until he was able to stall out. Got him down to 2 by my final turn. Next draw was a snap for the win, but couldn't get there. Annoying
Round 5: Big Naya Zoo 2-0
Both games went the same. Killed his guys and closed out with restos
Round 6: Jeskai Control 0-2
G1: Had pretty bad draws. Drew 3 back to back Path's with no targets. He was able to land ajani and win
G2: A little back and forth battle but he was eventually able to land keranos and close it out.
Round 7: Skred 2-1
G1: He landed a blood moon that I was able to battle through decently. He eventually landed enough threats to get there.
G2: I kept a hand with basics and fetches. He lands a blood moon but I was well set up with basics. He sticks a batterskull but I followed with Pia and Kiran. Block the skull, fling the thopter at his face to blank the life gain. Flickered the nalaars to keep it going with a resto and got there.
G3: Kept an opener with enogh basics and fethces to be relatively unaffected from the blood moons. Got there with bolts and beats
Round 8: Mardu Midrange 2-0
G1 and 2 were the same. Kept the board clear of threats and just ground him out.
Round 9: Bant Knightfall 2-1
G1: I knew what he was up to pretty early, so I knew what threats to disrupt to keep my life high, then burned him out.
G2: He drew 3 unified wills that shut down a lot of my plays, which led him to winning.
G3: He was stuck on 1 land and some dorks. I kept killing the dorks to keep him off of anything while I killed with resto beats.
All in all a very solid event for me. Finished 21st out of 232. Going forward I didn't get much use out of spell snare. I wouldn't cut it entirely but I could see going down to 1. Rev, snap, rev was very real and played a pretty solid role in the whole day. Looking at the Pro tour, a lot of those eldrazi decks are lacking the on cast triggers, which leads me to think that with a little adjustments, control could be viable (but tough) in a meta full of eldrazi. It's the big eldrazi that really hurt. I might want to main deck 4 Ghost Quarters for that.
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Modern: UWR Breach, UWB Esper control
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
I played at SCG Regionals yesterday with the following list:
3 Crytpic Command
All in all a very solid event for me. Finished 21st out of 232. Going forward I didn't get much use out of spell snare. I wouldn't cut it entirely but I could see going down to 1. Rev, snap, rev was very real and played a pretty solid role in the whole day. Looking at the Pro tour, a lot of those eldrazi decks are lacking the on cast triggers, which leads me to think that with a little adjustments, control could be viable (but tough) in a meta full of eldrazi. It's the big eldrazi that really hurt. I might want to main deck 4 Ghost Quarters for that.
Congratulations, that is really a great showing especially in a wide open - no one knows whats happening - meta. So i have to say im suprised by 3 cryptics, i recently came down to 1 thinking that i need to slot in more creatures and have a midrange-control hybrid like you have.
I've gone down to a singleton of spell snare btw, and i do miss some interactions i had previously, it is a great card and missed but looks like there are likely much better plays out there.
Round 3: GB Eldrazi 0-2
Only Eldrazi deck I faced the whole tournament. Not even close. Thought Knot Seer and 4 Worldbreakers just shut me down. Wasn't even fun.
This is why i feel uwr is not viable at the moment. Eldrazi is very difficult to beat, and you need a fast clock or a combo to win at this point.
Im very confident Wizard is going to make an "emergency ban" cos if they don't they got 2 GP's in March (GP Detroit and Bologna) which will get ruined by everyone to play Eldrazi. I..... onto Jeskai:
I've been thinking that since Eldrazi seems like running Chalice main mixed with being consisntent of mainly 2+ drops i think Spell Snare is kinda dead, and i think we need some creature removal in the 2CMC slot that takes everything. Actually i was thinking to stack up wrath effects and maybe try out something like Feeling of Dread to try force my opponent into overcommitting into a wrath. what you guys think?
I like feeling of dread, espeically for its flashback however have you considered just outright making them sacrifice their creatures? Celestial flare or something of that sort? By tapping them out, even twice you are relying on having two cards in hand where you will be likely running: 1-2 verdicts and .. 2-3 feeling of dread?? So 3-5 cards in a 60card deck seems very precarious.
Also the eldrazi/bannings thing: Banning of hot decks such as pod & twin, likely all the jund changes over the years (all the decks they say are "too consistent") is not about making the game any better it's to open up the game to new cards. What they don't want is a large group of players to get complacent and stick with a deck that needs little to no tweaking. They want to ultimately sell more cards and modern players do not contribute to their bottom line.
This among a hundred other reasons makes me think they will prolong this as long as possible in order to allow for other decks to come up and beat them, not because they are being patient and care, but rather because they are looking to get percieved value out of their new card set so more players in standard play (drafts etc.. ).
Hi everyone, new to this thread but not so much the deck. Played it for a while when I started playing modern and have moved around a lot of different decks. Recently though I just needed to play a flash deck.
Went 4-0 at a Wednesday Night Modern event with this list. (Infect, RG tron variant, Grixis Control, RG Tron). Beating RG tron twice was tough, both went to three games. Ghost quarters and Crumble to Dusts put in major work.
The Tamiyo is something i'm trying out as part of a larger mana denial strategy alongside the Crumbles and Ajani for the big mana decks, and the fact that they lock down threats in midrange matchups as well gives them some splash applications. Might ultimately be too cute but she's been testing well. In that vein she and Ajani both synergize with Gideon Jura, so I was contemplating changing the Sun's Champion for 1x Jura.
I really wish something a little more wieldy than Think Twice was available for card draw but until it gets printed I guess that's what we have to work with. Game 1 often plays out like a flash tempo game with this list and then game 2 I board into more hard control tools depending on the matchups. My local meta is pretty diverse with a good deal of Tron and Eldrazi decks lately so I figured I'd really put the sideboard tech through a trial by fire to see if it is really enough against Tron. From tonight's results it at least seems a little promising.
Anyway, I know theres a lot of buzz around the UWR shell since the ban list update so I figured I'd post my list that I've been tweaking.
Managed to get 28th out of 426 in a 10 round regionals yesterday running the list from this post. Missed my win and in to top 8 in the last round to a game 3 choke, ended up 7-3. I'll gladly provide a writeup if anyone is interested. The short version is:
Round 1) Burn (win in 3)
Round 2) Eldrazi (Loss in 2. This deck is broken, the person playing it didn't even understand the deck and its cards and was new to modern. I had to remember his chalice triggers for him...)
Round 3) Infect (Win in 2)
Round 4) Burn (Win in 3. Stabilized at 1 life in game 2 and 3, didn't see lightning helixes in any games)
Round 5) RG Tron (Win in 3)
Round 6) RG Through the Breach (Win in 3)
Round 7) Infect (Win in 2)
Round 8) Bogles (Win in 3, was extremely difficult)
Round 9) Melira Company (Loss in 3 to 9+ Eternal Witness casts in game 3)
Round 10) GW hate bears (Loss in 3 to a choke the turn before I would drop big Elspeth. Couldn't play cards and obviously lost)
Themis that was a great blast!! Congratulations!! Aside from Eldrazi that seems shaking grounds all over the globe i do think that we're not so out of the game. And consider that this eldrazi fever even made our Tron/affinity matchup better. They have sided their better cards against us (Emrakul/Etched Champion) 'cause of the quantity of colorless creatures.
Now a couple questions, how Snare performed for you? it is worth it to still at 2 or we may consider going down to 1?
Have you seen the new card from SOI, Invasive Surgery? it's very interesting, even if it's conditional (counter target sorcery spell) it could be triggered to do something like Crumble (it's not that easy though), we might see a decent counterspell in the new set.
Thank you. I'm still a bit salty, but I think we are extremely well positioned against aggro so if the Eldrazi deck gets dealt with by the meta or by the ban list I think we are decently positioned. After playing a lot more with it I still think the deck has card draw/advantage problems that hopefully we will see cards enter the modern pool to help us with, but our tool kit in general is just nice. Lightning Bolt is still the best modal spell in modern and Snap is great in conjunction with it so there's always those two things going for us.
Snare is just solid. I don't think I could ever go below two. I would not have been able to beat Bogles without it and I think its one of our best cards to protect use from the threat of a Chalice of the Void on 1. It's very possible we want more now.
Regarding Invasive Surgery, I'm very excited that we might get cards of similar design to help us though I'm not sure how much Invasive Surgery really has to offer us specifically, at least in this meta. I'm cautiously optimistic for better answers in SoI for UWx control and our deck in particular but I'm not holding my breath at the moment.
Themis that was a great blast!! Congratulations!! Aside from Eldrazi that seems shaking grounds all over the globe i do think that we're not so out of the game. And consider that this eldrazi fever even made our Tron/affinity matchup better. They have sided their better cards against us (Emrakul/Etched Champion) 'cause of the quantity of colorless creatures.
Now a couple questions, how Snare performed for you? it is worth it to still at 2 or we may consider going down to 1?
Have you seen the new card from SOI, Invasive Surgery? it's very interesting, even if it's conditional (counter target sorcery spell) it could be triggered to do something like Crumble (it's not that easy though), we might see a decent counterspell in the new set.
Thank you. I'm still a bit salty, but I think we are extremely well positioned against aggro so if the Eldrazi deck gets dealt with by the meta or by the ban list I think we are decently positioned. After playing a lot more with it I still think the deck has card draw/advantage problems that hopefully we will see cards enter the modern pool to help us with, but our tool kit in general is just nice. Lightning Bolt is still the best modal spell in modern and Snap is great in conjunction with it so there's always those two things going for us.
Snare is just solid. I don't think I could ever go below two. I would not have been able to beat Bogles without it and I think its one of our best cards to protect use from the threat of a Chalice of the Void on 1. It's very possible we want more now.
Regarding Invasive Surgery, I'm very excited that we might get cards of similar design to help us though I'm not sure how much Invasive Surgery really has to offer us specifically, at least in this meta. I'm cautiously optimistic for better answers in SoI for UWx control and our deck in particular but I'm not holding my breath at the moment.
invasive might help against scapeshift? That's about all I can think of at this point. However, there are better ways to deal with that deck as it is, so i'm not sure if there are applications for it. If it said instant or sorcery, or target non-creature spell, then we might have something.
Yeah, Shadow of Doubt is just much better against Scapeshift and its nice against a lot of things. Trading 1-1 in mana with thought seize effects is nice if it also means we are Slaughter Games-ing the rest of them out of their deck. Same with like Serum Visions? But these are all very minor hosers that could still be deceptively powerful but not near powerful enough in a vacuum to jam a ton of copies IMO.
If i wanted SB life gain against Burn I'd probably go with the fourth Helix, but i did manage to win twice against burn without any tech. Finks and Timely both seem like good choices as well but I've been blown out by Crack/Atarka's too many times so I prefer the life gain to be cheaper so I can hold up Snare/Dispel/etc more easily. Helix, Snap Helix, and Ajani all did work in round 1. Notably, in the last game against burn the second time I just made him play off the top until I had enough mana to flash in a Clique with 1 extra mana to hold up Dispel. I Cliqued him after draw step, he drew into rift bolt, and I bottomed it. Clique drew him into atarka's command which I dispelled and then I beat him down while holding up Cryptic and knot and anything else I drew into during the process. That was admittedly a very close game where burn tech out of the board might have been warranted but usually I feel we need hate for other strategies more so than burn. More Dispels is also amazing for the burn matchup because they answer a lot and help you turn the corner or protect your life gain spell much earlier.
Do any of you feel that you need help for the Affinity matchup from your sideboard? I feel like Stony Silence is sort of useless. I either get it early or it's just a wasted slot. Wear // Tear seems to cover everything I need.
Do any of you feel that you need help for the Affinity matchup from your sideboard? I feel like Stony Silence is sort of useless. I either get it early or it's just a wasted slot. Wear // Tear seems to cover everything I need.
You don't need a whole bunch against affinity. You have between 2-4 ELectrolyze depending on your list ( I personally run 3), possibly main board wraths. as well as counters like snare, knot, leak, etc. The match-up favors UWR, and you can often adjust your main board to beat it if it's omnipresent in your meta. I don't think you need much other than 1 wear, and 1 stony. I run 2 stony, but that's cause they hit lantern and tron.
For GP Melbourne, I'm considering running 3 Spreading Seas in the main, and 3 Wraths. Spreading Seas buys time against Eldrazi, hits the mana base of Burn quite well, and also shoots random stuff (Inkmoths, Blinkmoths). Wraths are for Eldrazi, primarily. Counterspells are actually decent against them, but I am scared of Thought-Knot-Goyf. Wraths will go a long way. I'll figure out a list tonight, but I'll most likely be playing it. I could've chosen affinity or storm, but I honestly don't know those decks that well. I'm comfortable playing this deck, even if it's 'poorly positioned'. I think most matchups are decent.
Guys what do you think about get in the side Surgical Extraction? With 3 GQ mainboard, Crucible and Crumble in side that could be an hard hit for Eldrazi/Tron.
GQ their temple then surgical away, after that crumble the eye. From my testing i saw that the worst build for us is the Processor one, but we could keep up with UR and Colorless (it's always very complicate games, but they're possible).
The line of play would be like infect: if we have a bolt we could take mimic, then path the Tought Knot seer, the turn after keep mana for counter smasher or another seer and try to grind the match. That line is impossible against processor, they have cast abilities.
I've played surgical and I've had pretty nice results with it. That being said, I'm not sure how good it is against eldrazi in terms of disrupting their mana base. The issue is that you need to assemble the combo of ghost quarter plus surgical, and you don't have many ways to dig for it other than card draw effects from electrolyze, remand, and cryptic. It's a great one of, but I ran it in addition to a main board teachings to help me get it. You would need to run it in multiples to get the best use out of it.
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I'll disagree with the statement that the Twin ban caused this. Twin can't beat a T1 Thought-Knot Seer followed by a T2 Thought-Knot Seer, followed by a T3 6/6 Endless One.
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
3 Restoration Angel
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
25 Spells
3 Cryptic Command
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
2 Electrolyze
3 Remand
3 Mana Leak
2 Spell Snare
1 Supreme Verdict
2 Lightning Helix
1 Sphinx's Revelation
1 Ajani Vengeant
26 Lands
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Flooded Strand
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Islands
2 Plains
1 Mountain
2 Steam Vents
2 Hallowed Fountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Celestial Colonnade
1 Wandering Fumarole
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Cascade Bluffs
1 Wear/Tear
1 Counterflux
1 Wrath of God
2 Crumble to Dust
1 Dispel
1 Negate
1 Keranos, God of Storms
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Kitchen Finks
1 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
Ultimately went 6-2-1. Pretty pleased with the deck overall, but I definitely had some luck with the pairing.
Round 1: Burn 2-1
G1: Lost really close. Opponent was at 2 when I lost. We missed a goblin guide trigger that would have had me winning, but I wasn't too salty about it.
G2 and 3: Both went pretty similarly. Double snap, double helix and a finks + resto got there pretty easily.
Round 2 Infect 2-1
G1: Just didn't let any creature survive. Made sure I killed every threat as soon as it showed up. I had exactly the right amount of removal to get there.
G2: Good draw from him. I didn't have enough to fight him off.
G3: Pretty similar to game 1. Just grabbed control of the game and didn't let up.
Round 3: GB Eldrazi 0-2
Only Eldrazi deck I faced the whole tournament. Not even close. Thought Knot Seer and 4 Worldbreakers just shut me down. Wasn't even fun.
Round 4: Soul Sisters Tokens 1-1-1
G1: Lost in a looooong grindy game. Finished with about 12 minutes left
G2: Won very quickly. Just quick burn and restos
G3: Winning decisively until he was able to stall out. Got him down to 2 by my final turn. Next draw was a snap for the win, but couldn't get there. Annoying
Round 5: Big Naya Zoo 2-0
Both games went the same. Killed his guys and closed out with restos
Round 6: Jeskai Control 0-2
G1: Had pretty bad draws. Drew 3 back to back Path's with no targets. He was able to land ajani and win
G2: A little back and forth battle but he was eventually able to land keranos and close it out.
Round 7: Skred 2-1
G1: He landed a blood moon that I was able to battle through decently. He eventually landed enough threats to get there.
G2: I kept a hand with basics and fetches. He lands a blood moon but I was well set up with basics. He sticks a batterskull but I followed with Pia and Kiran. Block the skull, fling the thopter at his face to blank the life gain. Flickered the nalaars to keep it going with a resto and got there.
G3: Kept an opener with enogh basics and fethces to be relatively unaffected from the blood moons. Got there with bolts and beats
Round 8: Mardu Midrange 2-0
G1 and 2 were the same. Kept the board clear of threats and just ground him out.
Round 9: Bant Knightfall 2-1
G1: I knew what he was up to pretty early, so I knew what threats to disrupt to keep my life high, then burned him out.
G2: He drew 3 unified wills that shut down a lot of my plays, which led him to winning.
G3: He was stuck on 1 land and some dorks. I kept killing the dorks to keep him off of anything while I killed with resto beats.
All in all a very solid event for me. Finished 21st out of 232. Going forward I didn't get much use out of spell snare. I wouldn't cut it entirely but I could see going down to 1. Rev, snap, rev was very real and played a pretty solid role in the whole day. Looking at the Pro tour, a lot of those eldrazi decks are lacking the on cast triggers, which leads me to think that with a little adjustments, control could be viable (but tough) in a meta full of eldrazi. It's the big eldrazi that really hurt. I might want to main deck 4 Ghost Quarters for that.
Legacy: UW RiP/Helm, UR Sneak and Show
Congratulations, that is really a great showing especially in a wide open - no one knows whats happening - meta. So i have to say im suprised by 3 cryptics, i recently came down to 1 thinking that i need to slot in more creatures and have a midrange-control hybrid like you have.
I've gone down to a singleton of spell snare btw, and i do miss some interactions i had previously, it is a great card and missed but looks like there are likely much better plays out there.
GWBoglesGW///URDelverUR WVial-knightsW
This is why i feel uwr is not viable at the moment. Eldrazi is very difficult to beat, and you need a fast clock or a combo to win at this point.
I like feeling of dread, espeically for its flashback however have you considered just outright making them sacrifice their creatures? Celestial flare or something of that sort? By tapping them out, even twice you are relying on having two cards in hand where you will be likely running: 1-2 verdicts and .. 2-3 feeling of dread?? So 3-5 cards in a 60card deck seems very precarious.
Also the eldrazi/bannings thing: Banning of hot decks such as pod & twin, likely all the jund changes over the years (all the decks they say are "too consistent") is not about making the game any better it's to open up the game to new cards. What they don't want is a large group of players to get complacent and stick with a deck that needs little to no tweaking. They want to ultimately sell more cards and modern players do not contribute to their bottom line.
This among a hundred other reasons makes me think they will prolong this as long as possible in order to allow for other decks to come up and beat them, not because they are being patient and care, but rather because they are looking to get percieved value out of their new card set so more players in standard play (drafts etc.. ).
GWBoglesGW///URDelverUR WVial-knightsW
Managed to get 28th out of 426 in a 10 round regionals yesterday running the list from this post. Missed my win and in to top 8 in the last round to a game 3 choke, ended up 7-3. I'll gladly provide a writeup if anyone is interested. The short version is:
Round 1) Burn (win in 3)
Round 2) Eldrazi (Loss in 2. This deck is broken, the person playing it didn't even understand the deck and its cards and was new to modern. I had to remember his chalice triggers for him...)
Round 3) Infect (Win in 2)
Round 4) Burn (Win in 3. Stabilized at 1 life in game 2 and 3, didn't see lightning helixes in any games)
Round 5) RG Tron (Win in 3)
Round 6) RG Through the Breach (Win in 3)
Round 7) Infect (Win in 2)
Round 8) Bogles (Win in 3, was extremely difficult)
Round 9) Melira Company (Loss in 3 to 9+ Eternal Witness casts in game 3)
Round 10) GW hate bears (Loss in 3 to a choke the turn before I would drop big Elspeth. Couldn't play cards and obviously lost)
Thank you.
Snare is just solid. I don't think I could ever go below two. I would not have been able to beat Bogles without it and I think its one of our best cards to protect use from the threat of a Chalice of the Void on 1. It's very possible we want more now.
Regarding Invasive Surgery, I'm very excited that we might get cards of similar design to help us though I'm not sure how much Invasive Surgery really has to offer us specifically, at least in this meta. I'm cautiously optimistic for better answers in SoI for UWx control and our deck in particular but I'm not holding my breath at the moment.
invasive might help against scapeshift? That's about all I can think of at this point. However, there are better ways to deal with that deck as it is, so i'm not sure if there are applications for it. If it said instant or sorcery, or target non-creature spell, then we might have something.
You don't need a whole bunch against affinity. You have between 2-4 ELectrolyze depending on your list ( I personally run 3), possibly main board wraths. as well as counters like snare, knot, leak, etc. The match-up favors UWR, and you can often adjust your main board to beat it if it's omnipresent in your meta. I don't think you need much other than 1 wear, and 1 stony. I run 2 stony, but that's cause they hit lantern and tron.
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
UWR Control
Legacy:
W D&T
Agreed, I think Ghostly Prison would be a better choice than Worship if we were to go the route of some sort of prisony enchant to attack Eldrazi.
I've played surgical and I've had pretty nice results with it. That being said, I'm not sure how good it is against eldrazi in terms of disrupting their mana base. The issue is that you need to assemble the combo of ghost quarter plus surgical, and you don't have many ways to dig for it other than card draw effects from electrolyze, remand, and cryptic. It's a great one of, but I ran it in addition to a main board teachings to help me get it. You would need to run it in multiples to get the best use out of it.