I also think copter is fine as a 4 of but I also think it's fine as a 3 of too. I used to play a lot of butcher but honestly he's kind of disappointing. He requires resources to do anything relevant and something you just don't have that or it's actively bad for you to sacrifice them. Or you do sac 1-2 guys and he's just killed. Too much variance with him
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He has won me some games back when I did play him but with how insane push is if you are playing a 4 drop it should be better than isn't bad. Perhaps I'm overestimating how easy it is to revolt push.
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Mostly trying to get a good creature lineup going. I think Butcher is the closet we have to a good top end. IDK, just spitballing, really. I kinda wanted Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Ajani Vengeant here, but I'm not sure if they were really needed.
Mostly trying to get a good creature lineup going. I think Butcher is the closet we have to a good top end. IDK, just spitballing, really. I kinda wanted Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Ajani Vengeant here, but I'm not sure if they were really needed.
When I used Ajani he usually ended up being a Lightning Helix. I like Butcher a lot.
Young Pyro was similarly underwhelming when I played him, and he's a pretty bad topdeck. You might like Mogg War Marshal instead. The odds of Pyro getting you 3 tokens is usually pretty low. MWM can help keep you alive against aggro and is delicious Butcher food.
I tried Falkenrath Aristocrat and found her even more satisfying in most cases than Butcher. Seriously, the only rule she really lacks is Lifelink, and usually we play lots of maindeck lifegain and it's not crucial at all. As opposite, she can protect herself from everything but Path and -X/-X removal, and currently seems like lot of decks gonna replace half of their Path's for Pushes. -X/-X are still not so popular, even if some decks gonna test new Yahenni's Expertise. Maybe I even gonna play some more humans to make her even more dangerous. The ability to sacrifice Bob when you are low life and get +1/+1 is already looks cool, maybe I'll also try to play with 1-2 Abbot of Keral Keep.
Also I replaced 4 Bitterblossom with 4 Hidden Stockpile for tests and they seem pretty fun and even more grindy if you don't play Anthems like me.
I think that Falkenrath Aristocrat's floor (when you have nothing else) is lower than Butcher of the Horde and having the lifelink is a very important advantage (especially if you run Bob you need every bit of lifegain you can get) so the best case scenario can also be better.
Hidden Stockpile seems interesting (and also probably much cheaper than Bitterblossom) but the tokens can't be a win condition without the evasion and you probably won't be able to consistently create more of them (since sac'ing them will set you back).
Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum so I thought I'd post a list I'm thinking about building. Its based around protecting Nahiri Harbinger. For a main deck board wipe I went with engineered explosives. I figured with the recent banning of gitaxian probe and printing of Fatal Push the format might slow a little so engineered explosives might be more of a catch all. Thought and opinions are welcomed.
I don't think cutting terminates all together is correct. If push is going to be as big as we all know it will be, it's going to make people play bigger dudes. I think you want that extra catch all removal you can get. Who knows what the meta will actually do though. I don't think you should cut both terminates, cutting 1 seems fine. Or if you do, add crackling doom or something. I suppose both gideon and nahiri will help in removing big dudes as well but they need to be tapped.
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Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum so I thought I'd post a list I'm thinking about building. Its based around protecting Nahiri Harbinger. For a main deck board wipe I went with engineered explosives. I figured with the recent banning of gitaxian probe and printing of Fatal Push the format might slow a little so engineered explosives might be more of a catch all. Thought and opinions are welcomed.
Why are you running 23 lands in a creatureless control deck? With your curve I'd play 26, but cutting 2-3 Gideons and running 24-25 seems like the better option. I don't think you want to be running any Terminates now that we have access to both Path and Push, but i have no idea yet myself what the correct removal split is with this new option. I like Explosives main in your build a lot though.
Also, as an aside, i don't believe there#s any point in posting decklists without a manabase and a sideboard as these are both among the hardest and most important aspects of deckbuilding and looking at a maindeck in isolation without knowing those other factors can be a little futile.
Yeah I play a lot of Mardu w/ Lili and Nahiri and it's absolutely critical to hit your third land drop on curve and it's often a backbreaker if you miss your fourth drop on curve. More lands is better if you want to go w/ this build though it leaves you open to flooding mid/late game if you don't land Nahiri. I play a full set of Pack Rat in my deck along w/ Mutavault to get up to 25-26 lands and have something to do w/ the extra lands. The Rat is highly underrated in Modern and I think more people don't play it b/c it forces a lot of tough decisions on you as a player as to when to play it period, and when to go off and just Rat them out.
I think Fatal Push is being a bit oversold at the moment. It's going to be a great card but Path/Terminate are still better in the long game. Revolt won't be as active as some people are thinking and having to hold off cracking a fetch to keep Revolt in play brings other issues. When you play Lili and Nahiri you pretty much want to hit 4-5 lands and then not play anymore using the extras to pitch to Lili or loot w/ Nahiri. Also I'd feel naked w/o Helix in this deck. Playing on curve requires taking damage from your mana and Shambling Vent can be clunky if you have to play it the first four turns for reasons I mentioned in first paragraph.
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With the recent banning of Golgari Grave Troll, Do you think we still need Rest In peace in board? (The deck isn't dead, but it's slower than before). I want to replace it with Surgical Extraction for flexibility. RIP conflicts with my Spectral too.
2 Rest in Peace = 2 Surgical or 1 surgical + another sb slot.
And with the recent of banning of cards, i think it's a good news to us since it will make the format slower, making our Nahiri playable than before.
I've been thinking about brewing around heart of Kiran. I think I would go a slightly bigger build with no visitor but a couple gideon jura. Gideon and heart seem like a match made in heaven. Asylum visitor seems neat. I wonder how relevant his madness and draw abilities actually are he could be very relevant.
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I've been thinking about brewing around heart of Kiran. I think I would go a slightly bigger build with no visitor but a couple gideon jura. Gideon and heart seem like a match made in heaven. Asylum visitor seems neat. I wonder how relevant his madness and draw abilities actually are he could be very relevant.
First thing I thought of when I saw Heart of Kiran was Asylum Visitor. I've played Visitor frequently in Mardu w/ Lili and Nahiri and here is my experience:
Madness is not active until turn 4 at the earliest off of Collective Brutality or Lili. Turn 4 is when you want to be playing Nahiri though. If you play Nahiri turn 4, Madness to put Visitor into play doesn't come on line until Turn 5 so it is suboptimal imho in that respect. Your opponent is not typically going to help you get it into play via Madness either, as there is typically something better they can take if they Seize or Inquisition you, especially early game, so you really need to be playing against a deck that runs blind discard that let's you choose the card to get rid of, or be playing against opposing Lili's. In these situations Visitor can shine, but they are the exceptions not the rules.
The card draw is inconsistent. Visitor is an OK-good card against something like Jund that wants to play top deck war, but Confidant is obviously much better in giving you extra cards consistently, and Visitor is easily outclassed by Goyf and also typically Scooze. Also, anytime you get the extra card off Visitor and draw a land, then draw a land for your turn draw, you will have to have a way to discard the second land or you cannot use Visitor's draw again on your next turn. If Lili and/or Nahiri are already out, that's great...if they are not it's not. If Nahiri is out w/ high loyalty you are essentially going to win the game in a turn or two so Visitor seems meh here. If you have to minus Nahiri the first turn you play her then Visitor can be great obviously to have for Nahiri's loot the next turn, but again, corner cases and not regular ones. Visitor is better w/ Lili, but maybe not in this deck or the build that also uses Nahiri.
Visitor also wants a bunch of instants in the deck to be used optimally so if you get two into play at once you can stack the triggers, draw a card for the first trigger resolution, and ideally play an instant so you will get another card when the second trigger goes off, and draw your card for turn. These situations are extremely rare, however, b/c this build of Mardu runs so many sorceries and walkers. Getting your opponent hellbent so you can use Visitor during their upkeep is also not an easy thing to do, even in this deck w/ Lili, b/c Mardu isn't really trying to completely empty an opponent's hand vs. cherry picking w/ Seize and Inquisition while using Lili to keep them low on cards. Most of the time Visitor is just a vanilla 2CMC 3/1 with no evasion.
Lastly, in this build you typically run very few or even no creatures, so Visitor just turns on any removal your opponent might have instead of making it suboptimal like Souls does. I would encourage you to give the card a try and see these things for yourself, and maybe Heart is the card that makes it soar in Mardu, but Visitor in my experience feels only OK. It's one of those cards that's "almost" there in this deck, but not quite. I think it is better in a low to the ground aggro build w/ something like Lotleth Troll or in a deck that wants to run Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Bloodghast to maximize the synergy w/ vampires.
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Mr. Snow, I would reply that Mardu is built more meta dependant than Jund or Abzan at the moment. Up until the recent bannings, main deck sweepers, specifically anger, were warranted and almost necessary. The same could be said for helix. Most moderners I've spoken to, myself included, believe that the meta will slow down considerably with the printing of push (which we don't particularly need, but UB and Sultai are elated to see) as well as the nerfing of battle rage decks, Infect (kinda), and dredge. This could lead to less sweepers and more spot removal being called for, or at least bigger sweep effects (wrath and damnation over anger). While most builds main deck can't remove an ascension, storm got hit hard by the bannings as well.
I also disagree about Nahiri being our only win con. Every list I've seen runs 4 lingering souls, and with good reason. Four evasive 1/1s are a respectable clock and the card is difficult to disrupt. I also run blossom and virtue, giving me an entirely different angle should I not succeed or find my Nahiri plan, but that's only one option. You could go Bob/Pyro/Butcher, but butchers stock is gonna drop even more than it already is with push out there. Mardu will never have the same pressure as Jund or abzan, lack of Goyf and flayer are just part of trade-off to having access to Lily AND Nahiri.
Every deck has bad matchups, were never gonna be good against Tron, (what midrange/control is?) RW and Lantern prison is always going to suck to play against, and Mardu punches itself in the face a little more than your average midrange so beware the burn out there. We get, in return, a favored lineup against most aggro (kill all the things) and most midrange (creature removal looks silly against tokens and walkers), and great tools against combo pre board (IoK, TS, Lily) and post (all the sideboard gold white has to offer.) We also have anguished unmaking, which does a decent vindicate impression, but 3 life is substantial. Would still rather have vindicate.
I guess what I'm getting at is, Mardu is a different deck, and worth trying. There are some similarities to Jund and Abzan, but they really do play differently. And hey, if you find any sweet tech while trying it out, let us know sorry for the wall of text, Mardu's been a long and rewarding experience for me. I've been known to ramble.
I speak as a Jund and Abzan player who wants to try also mardu nahiri.
Imho the problems are:
-the deck only wins with nahiri.
-the deck has got cheap removal but they aren't "kill all the stuff". Decay kills ascension and cranial, pulse also leyline of sanctity and other pw (sun and moon will be a thing). Vindicate unfortunately hasn't been reprinted.
-the deck only makes 1-1 this is a good strategy if you play abzan and jund because you have got dark confidant (abzan will play confidant too after aether revolt) and other bombs but here not so much against swarm decks so... anger of the gods could be needed. I've played both skred and an homebrew rakdos control and I know how much I needed those cards.
-Do you really want to play asylum visitor + heart of kiran when a lot of jund players are planning to play 2x kholaghan's command md and everyone fears grixis control which is strong due to the combo snapcaster+kholagan?
These are all valid criticisms of Mardu and I've seen all of them come up playing the deck. As Twanicus says though it is a fun deck to play and getting to run Lili and Nahiri together is a nice benefit. My next build though will dump Lili and I'll run Kcommand and Crackling in her place as I like the instant heavy play myself. As you can see by looking through this thread there are many takes on these colors and nobody has really hit on the "optimum" list from the Spike perspective, but this deck is not for Spikes...at least not yet.
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I speak as a Jund and Abzan player who wants to try also mardu nahiri.
Imho the problems are:
-the deck only wins with nahiri.
-the deck has got cheap removal but they aren't "kill all the stuff". Decay kills ascension and cranial, pulse also leyline of sanctity and other pw (sun and moon will be a thing). Vindicate unfortunately hasn't been reprinted.
-the deck only makes 1-1 this is a good strategy if you play abzan and jund because you have got dark confidant (abzan will play confidant too after aether revolt) and other bombs but here not so much against swarm decks so... anger of the gods could be needed. I've played both skred and an homebrew rakdos control and I know how much I needed those cards.
-Do you really want to play asylum visitor + heart of kiran when a lot of jund players are planning to play 2x kholaghan's command md and everyone fears grixis control which is strong due to the combo snapcaster+kholagan?
1. I've won with Nahiri, ultimating Lilliana, lingering souls, shambling vents, bolts etc.
2. Pretty sure path nails everything. Beyond that we have so many different methods of removal it's hard to believe they will all whiff.
3.Our 1 for 1 game is supplemented but planeswalkers and lingering souls. The latter is what allows us to usually beat jund. I also play confidant in my deck and would 100% recommend him to other mardu nahiri players.
4. I don't think heart or visitor belongs in this deck at all. But that's me.
Hey everyone, I'm new to this forum so I thought I'd post a list I'm thinking about building. Its based around protecting Nahiri Harbinger. For a main deck board wipe I went with engineered explosives. I figured with the recent banning of gitaxian probe and printing of Fatal Push the format might slow a little so engineered explosives might be more of a catch all. Thought and opinions are welcomed.
Why are you running 23 lands in a creatureless control deck? With your curve I'd play 26, but cutting 2-3 Gideons and running 24-25 seems like the better option. I don't think you want to be running any Terminates now that we have access to both Path and Push, but i have no idea yet myself what the correct removal split is with this new option. I like Explosives main in your build a lot though.
Also, as an aside, i don't believe there#s any point in posting decklists without a manabase and a sideboard as these are both among the hardest and most important aspects of deckbuilding and looking at a maindeck in isolation without knowing those other factors can be a little futile.
Yeah I play a lot of Mardu w/ Lili and Nahiri and it's absolutely critical to hit your third land drop on curve and it's often a backbreaker if you miss your fourth drop on curve. More lands is better if you want to go w/ this build though it leaves you open to flooding mid/late game if you don't land Nahiri. I play a full set of Pack Rat in my deck along w/ Mutavault to get up to 25-26 lands and have something to do w/ the extra lands. The Rat is highly underrated in Modern and I think more people don't play it b/c it forces a lot of tough decisions on you as a player as to when to play it period, and when to go off and just Rat them out.
I think Fatal Push is being a bit oversold at the moment. It's going to be a great card but Path/Terminate are still better in the long game. Revolt won't be as active as some people are thinking and having to hold off cracking a fetch to keep Revolt in play brings other issues. When you play Lili and Nahiri you pretty much want to hit 4-5 lands and then not play anymore using the extras to pitch to Lili or loot w/ Nahiri. Also I'd feel naked w/o Helix in this deck. Playing on curve requires taking damage from your mana and Shambling Vent can be clunky if you have to play it the first four turns for reasons I mentioned in first paragraph.
Fatal Push kills 90% of Modern (statistically true) even without Revolt. Revolt is just icing on the cake. Path to Exile is for everything where exile and 4+ mana cards are relevant, but those are the vast minority in Modern. Being able to kill almost anything on turn 1-3 without ramping the opponent is huge.
Of course Fatal Push isn't going to be substantial for Mardu as it is for other black based decks since we already have the most efficient removals. So we shouldn't be expecting it to put Mardu to tier 1 or anything.
So where does Path and Terminate belong in the conversation? Personally, I don't even know if Terminate is even worth playing when we have 4 Path to Exile. If your meta is full of Eldrazi, Grixis Control, and Titanshift then Terminate takes priority. Everything else you should be running at least 3:1 ratio of Push to Terminate.
Lightning Helix is a great card. The lifegain is easy to underestimate. I would perhaps replace Terminate with those.
Technically speaking Mardu doesn't have to play 4 Lightning Bolt anymore - especially with Fatal Push out. A little bit of reach isn't that crucial for Mardu since we win through board state and attrition. It's a defensive spell 90% of the time and Fatal Push is the better defensive card.
The biggest argument for not cutting burn spells is of course, they are less of a liability in non-interactive non-creature based decks. Technically cutting burn shouldn't dip our already low percentages that much lower. It's just a matter of what your meta looks like.
I speak as a Jund and Abzan player who wants to try also mardu nahiri.
Imho the problems are:
-the deck only wins with nahiri.
-the deck has got cheap removal but they aren't "kill all the stuff". Decay kills ascension and cranial, pulse also leyline of sanctity and other pw (sun and moon will be a thing). Vindicate unfortunately hasn't been reprinted.
-the deck only makes 1-1 this is a good strategy if you play abzan and jund because you have got dark confidant (abzan will play confidant too after aether revolt) and other bombs but here not so much against swarm decks so... anger of the gods could be needed. I've played both skred and an homebrew rakdos control and I know how much I needed those cards.
-Do you really want to play asylum visitor + heart of kiran when a lot of jund players are planning to play 2x kholaghan's command md and everyone fears grixis control which is strong due to the combo snapcaster+kholagan?
I got over 200 games played with the deck and it often wins with Souls, manland and bob if you run it or flex spots creatures. While we don't have main deck permanent removal (some run Engineered mainboard), we still have Nahiri for enchantement. RW prison is an increadibly easy matchup, never lost to the deck tbh, just fetch a plain and it's usually gg.
About bolt/push. I like push, it looks amazing and will definitely try some, but bolt is much more than just a removal. It's a removal, reach and planewalker removal too.
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WBC Eldrazi & Taxes CBW
UR Keep on Cantripin' (UR Phoenix) RU
WU Surprise! It's not UW Control! (UW Midrange) UW
BG The Rock, Straight BG
U Mono-Blue Fish U
RBW Mardu Pyromancer BWR
RG Rabble! Rabble! (GR Blood Moon Aggro) GR
Legacy
W Death & Taxes W
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
4 Dark Confidant
4 Young Pyromancer
2 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Butcher of the Horde
3 Liliana of the Veil
Spells
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Terminate
3 Lightning Helix
3 Lingering Souls
2 Kolaghan's Command
Mostly trying to get a good creature lineup going. I think Butcher is the closet we have to a good top end. IDK, just spitballing, really. I kinda wanted Sorin, Lord of Innistrad and Ajani Vengeant here, but I'm not sure if they were really needed.
When I used Ajani he usually ended up being a Lightning Helix. I like Butcher a lot.
Young Pyro was similarly underwhelming when I played him, and he's a pretty bad topdeck. You might like Mogg War Marshal instead. The odds of Pyro getting you 3 tokens is usually pretty low. MWM can help keep you alive against aggro and is delicious Butcher food.
Also I replaced 4 Bitterblossom with 4 Hidden Stockpile for tests and they seem pretty fun and even more grindy if you don't play Anthems like me.
Main advantages:
Comes online with fetchland at turn 2;
can easily activate Revolt for Fatal Push;
scry is really abusable with our good friends Smuggler's Copter, Abbot of Keral Keep, Chandra, Torch of Defiance and Dark Confidant;
servos can be utilized with Pia and Kiran Nalaar (they are in my sideboard against Jund/Abzan).
Good old synergy, if you ask me. I really love to play such builds even if they lack the raw power.
BRG Shamans
WUBRGElementals
Hidden Stockpile seems interesting (and also probably much cheaper than Bitterblossom) but the tokens can't be a win condition without the evasion and you probably won't be able to consistently create more of them (since sac'ing them will set you back).
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
2 Terminate
2 Fatal Push
2 Collective Brutality
2 Engineered Explosives
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughseize
4 Lingering Souls
4 Lliana of the Veil
4 Nahiri Harbinger
3 Gideon Jura
23 Lands
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
Yeah I play a lot of Mardu w/ Lili and Nahiri and it's absolutely critical to hit your third land drop on curve and it's often a backbreaker if you miss your fourth drop on curve. More lands is better if you want to go w/ this build though it leaves you open to flooding mid/late game if you don't land Nahiri. I play a full set of Pack Rat in my deck along w/ Mutavault to get up to 25-26 lands and have something to do w/ the extra lands. The Rat is highly underrated in Modern and I think more people don't play it b/c it forces a lot of tough decisions on you as a player as to when to play it period, and when to go off and just Rat them out.
I think Fatal Push is being a bit oversold at the moment. It's going to be a great card but Path/Terminate are still better in the long game. Revolt won't be as active as some people are thinking and having to hold off cracking a fetch to keep Revolt in play brings other issues. When you play Lili and Nahiri you pretty much want to hit 4-5 lands and then not play anymore using the extras to pitch to Lili or loot w/ Nahiri. Also I'd feel naked w/o Helix in this deck. Playing on curve requires taking damage from your mana and Shambling Vent can be clunky if you have to play it the first four turns for reasons I mentioned in first paragraph.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
With the recent banning of Golgari Grave Troll, Do you think we still need Rest In peace in board? (The deck isn't dead, but it's slower than before). I want to replace it with Surgical Extraction for flexibility. RIP conflicts with my Spectral too.
2 Rest in Peace = 2 Surgical or 1 surgical + another sb slot.
And with the recent of banning of cards, i think it's a good news to us since it will make the format slower, making our Nahiri playable than before.
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
First thing I thought of when I saw Heart of Kiran was Asylum Visitor. I've played Visitor frequently in Mardu w/ Lili and Nahiri and here is my experience:
Madness is not active until turn 4 at the earliest off of Collective Brutality or Lili. Turn 4 is when you want to be playing Nahiri though. If you play Nahiri turn 4, Madness to put Visitor into play doesn't come on line until Turn 5 so it is suboptimal imho in that respect. Your opponent is not typically going to help you get it into play via Madness either, as there is typically something better they can take if they Seize or Inquisition you, especially early game, so you really need to be playing against a deck that runs blind discard that let's you choose the card to get rid of, or be playing against opposing Lili's. In these situations Visitor can shine, but they are the exceptions not the rules.
The card draw is inconsistent. Visitor is an OK-good card against something like Jund that wants to play top deck war, but Confidant is obviously much better in giving you extra cards consistently, and Visitor is easily outclassed by Goyf and also typically Scooze. Also, anytime you get the extra card off Visitor and draw a land, then draw a land for your turn draw, you will have to have a way to discard the second land or you cannot use Visitor's draw again on your next turn. If Lili and/or Nahiri are already out, that's great...if they are not it's not. If Nahiri is out w/ high loyalty you are essentially going to win the game in a turn or two so Visitor seems meh here. If you have to minus Nahiri the first turn you play her then Visitor can be great obviously to have for Nahiri's loot the next turn, but again, corner cases and not regular ones. Visitor is better w/ Lili, but maybe not in this deck or the build that also uses Nahiri.
Visitor also wants a bunch of instants in the deck to be used optimally so if you get two into play at once you can stack the triggers, draw a card for the first trigger resolution, and ideally play an instant so you will get another card when the second trigger goes off, and draw your card for turn. These situations are extremely rare, however, b/c this build of Mardu runs so many sorceries and walkers. Getting your opponent hellbent so you can use Visitor during their upkeep is also not an easy thing to do, even in this deck w/ Lili, b/c Mardu isn't really trying to completely empty an opponent's hand vs. cherry picking w/ Seize and Inquisition while using Lili to keep them low on cards. Most of the time Visitor is just a vanilla 2CMC 3/1 with no evasion.
Lastly, in this build you typically run very few or even no creatures, so Visitor just turns on any removal your opponent might have instead of making it suboptimal like Souls does. I would encourage you to give the card a try and see these things for yourself, and maybe Heart is the card that makes it soar in Mardu, but Visitor in my experience feels only OK. It's one of those cards that's "almost" there in this deck, but not quite. I think it is better in a low to the ground aggro build w/ something like Lotleth Troll or in a deck that wants to run Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and Bloodghast to maximize the synergy w/ vampires.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
I also disagree about Nahiri being our only win con. Every list I've seen runs 4 lingering souls, and with good reason. Four evasive 1/1s are a respectable clock and the card is difficult to disrupt. I also run blossom and virtue, giving me an entirely different angle should I not succeed or find my Nahiri plan, but that's only one option. You could go Bob/Pyro/Butcher, but butchers stock is gonna drop even more than it already is with push out there. Mardu will never have the same pressure as Jund or abzan, lack of Goyf and flayer are just part of trade-off to having access to Lily AND Nahiri.
Every deck has bad matchups, were never gonna be good against Tron, (what midrange/control is?) RW and Lantern prison is always going to suck to play against, and Mardu punches itself in the face a little more than your average midrange so beware the burn out there. We get, in return, a favored lineup against most aggro (kill all the things) and most midrange (creature removal looks silly against tokens and walkers), and great tools against combo pre board (IoK, TS, Lily) and post (all the sideboard gold white has to offer.) We also have anguished unmaking, which does a decent vindicate impression, but 3 life is substantial. Would still rather have vindicate.
I guess what I'm getting at is, Mardu is a different deck, and worth trying. There are some similarities to Jund and Abzan, but they really do play differently. And hey, if you find any sweet tech while trying it out, let us know sorry for the wall of text, Mardu's been a long and rewarding experience for me. I've been known to ramble.
These are all valid criticisms of Mardu and I've seen all of them come up playing the deck. As Twanicus says though it is a fun deck to play and getting to run Lili and Nahiri together is a nice benefit. My next build though will dump Lili and I'll run Kcommand and Crackling in her place as I like the instant heavy play myself. As you can see by looking through this thread there are many takes on these colors and nobody has really hit on the "optimum" list from the Spike perspective, but this deck is not for Spikes...at least not yet.
I play Magic: the Gathering, not Magic: the Commandering.
1. I've won with Nahiri, ultimating Lilliana, lingering souls, shambling vents, bolts etc.
2. Pretty sure path nails everything. Beyond that we have so many different methods of removal it's hard to believe they will all whiff.
3.Our 1 for 1 game is supplemented but planeswalkers and lingering souls. The latter is what allows us to usually beat jund. I also play confidant in my deck and would 100% recommend him to other mardu nahiri players.
4. I don't think heart or visitor belongs in this deck at all. But that's me.
Fatal Push kills 90% of Modern (statistically true) even without Revolt. Revolt is just icing on the cake. Path to Exile is for everything where exile and 4+ mana cards are relevant, but those are the vast minority in Modern. Being able to kill almost anything on turn 1-3 without ramping the opponent is huge.
Of course Fatal Push isn't going to be substantial for Mardu as it is for other black based decks since we already have the most efficient removals. So we shouldn't be expecting it to put Mardu to tier 1 or anything.
So where does Path and Terminate belong in the conversation? Personally, I don't even know if Terminate is even worth playing when we have 4 Path to Exile. If your meta is full of Eldrazi, Grixis Control, and Titanshift then Terminate takes priority. Everything else you should be running at least 3:1 ratio of Push to Terminate.
Lightning Helix is a great card. The lifegain is easy to underestimate. I would perhaps replace Terminate with those.
Technically speaking Mardu doesn't have to play 4 Lightning Bolt anymore - especially with Fatal Push out. A little bit of reach isn't that crucial for Mardu since we win through board state and attrition. It's a defensive spell 90% of the time and Fatal Push is the better defensive card.
The biggest argument for not cutting burn spells is of course, they are less of a liability in non-interactive non-creature based decks. Technically cutting burn shouldn't dip our already low percentages that much lower. It's just a matter of what your meta looks like.
I got over 200 games played with the deck and it often wins with Souls, manland and bob if you run it or flex spots creatures. While we don't have main deck permanent removal (some run Engineered mainboard), we still have Nahiri for enchantement. RW prison is an increadibly easy matchup, never lost to the deck tbh, just fetch a plain and it's usually gg.
About bolt/push. I like push, it looks amazing and will definitely try some, but bolt is much more than just a removal. It's a removal, reach and planewalker removal too.