My meta is mostly non-affinity aggro and burn so like I said, they may not stay long.
If that's your meta, you definitely want to try out Kitchen Finks in the Demigod spot. If you're playing a Resto deck in a non-affnity aggro meta you can go very far simply with Resto-Finks.
Also, you sideboard could use some Runed Halo (solid vs all aggro decks but also good vs several combo deck, and turns the Valakut MU on its head) and more efficient sweepers (Anger of the Gods, Engineered Explosives).
Liliana, especially 4 copies, seems a bit awkward in such a meta.
As for the slow clock, the fastest clock you can have here is turn 4 Resto, turn 5 Kiki.
If I had finks I would run them.
And yeah, 4 Liliana might be a lot but at my LGS, any given week could have new decks and she is pretty solid all around outside decks like burn which I just side them out.
Shriez,
Have you tried Eternal Scourge ?
It also is very good at grinding, hard to kill (especially combined with Relic/RiP/Anger) and at least has reasonable stats unlike Squadron Hawk.
If you want to be even jankier it can be paired with Lost Legacy (over Slaughter Games) to draw all of them or get them back from the GY.
If Eternal Scourge was a 2 drop I'd honestly try it. Problem is it's a 3 drop and it'd be competing with Lingering Souls, KCommand, and Crusader for that spot.
As for Squadron Hawk, I'm not advocating for it based on 1 FNM performance, I'm advocating for it based off a month of repeated testing against every deck I can find and every option I have for the 1-2 drop slot. I have yet to find a matchup where I wished Hawk was something else.
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Collecting Timbermare, hit me up if you have any for trade
Interesting take. I feel that different choices (such as thoughtseize over IoK) are meta dependent. I've been convinced that push over burn spells has been the right call for months now, good to see others making that switch as well. I'm not convinced about gideon but it may be worth a try some day. As noted, my deck is more controlling than most and I love making people discard. Also, people at my shop have been known to play bogles so I think it's completely meta driven as well.
Anyone else have any experience with Glory-Bound Initiate? He's been solid so far. The deck has been surprisingly strong considering I kinda threw it together on a whim. Seems to be at least playable, but then again, a pile of removal and efficient creatures can only be so bad. With the Initiate I feel okay supporting 2 Painful Truths in the main alongside Confidant for a wild ride of card advantage. Slayers' Stronghold was initially just a joke to see if I could start swinging with a 6/4 Vigilant Initiate. After playing with it, its kinda grown on me. It turns Initiates into overdrive and has won me a game or two i had no business winning. It even lets me play "build-your-own-bloodbraid-elf" with lategame Abbots. It still may be worse than a Ghost Quarter but I'm willing to sacrifice power for I felt like i'd share the list. Izzet Staticaster makes very ver sad
Anyone else have any experience with Glory-Bound Initiate? He's been solid so far. The deck has been surprisingly strong considering I kinda threw it together on a whim. Seems to be at least playable, but then again, a pile of removal and efficient creatures can only be so bad. With the Initiate I feel okay supporting 2 Painful Truths in the main alongside Confidant for a wild ride of card advantage. Slayers' Stronghold was initially just a joke to see if I could start swinging with a 6/4 Vigilant Initiate. After playing with it, its kinda grown on me. It turns Initiates into overdrive and has won me a game or two i had no business winning. It even lets me play "build-your-own-bloodbraid-elf" with lategame Abbots. It still may be worse than a Ghost Quarter but I'm willing to sacrifice power for I felt like i'd share the list. Izzet Staticaster makes very ver sad
I'm always leery of playing X/1's in modern that don't take over games since there is so much X/1 hate in the format. The slayer stronghold interaction is nice, I give you that. I just don't see how he is better than SGM in the deck? The deck is slow as it is and if you're going to have a "threat" stick to the field, SGM synergizes with the deck much more than GBI does. By the way, if you exert him, him & SGM do the same damage over 2 turns (which may not be relevant later in the game since he can trim a turn off the clock if oppo is @ <4 life).
My gut is that the best "version" of the non-nahiri deck is 4 Bob's, 4 SGM, 2 Tidehollow Scullers, 3 Gideon of the Trials, 4 Thoughtseize/2IoK, 1 C.B. and a pile of cheap removal. That way you're "hedged" mostly against other creature decks where Bob, SGM, Gideon, and your removal will win you 65%+ of the games, but you also have a lot of discard and interaction with some of the harder combo MU's as Gideon is quite good in these MU's as is Sculler and you play 7 discard spells on top of it. Then you have a pile of artifact/GY/grindy+small creature hate (Anger as a 1 of is nice as Dredge and small creature deck hate and Liliana the Last Hope is great against the same decks plus Midrange and Control decks). The biggest thing is having enough ways to meaningful interact with your bad combo MU's through extraction effects. My only hesitation here is not wanting to rely entirely on them since Leyline is a thing so I've been playing 2 Lost Legacy and 1 Nevermore to kind of hedge. Not sure if that is right or not, but it's been ok.
PS: At least 1 Rakdos Charm should be in every Mardu SB. It's too flexible to not play 1 as hitting the GY and artifacts is super important and having that in one card is amazing.
I tried something similar myself, but more aggroish, with 4x Bolt and 4x Helix. It was fun but ultimately proved much like usually, a "BGx deck without Goyf". We still miss that big beater in some MUs. Additionally, Initiate is allright, but not actually great. He dies to everything and doesn't put enough pressure when we really need to race. So I realized probably the deck would simply be better off without it. Take your list: if you go -4 Initiate, -2 Painful Truths, +2 Lingering Souls, +4 Lightning Bolt it would probably be a better deck. I would play 4x Shambling Vent by the way.
All of this to say, I tried Initiate-Mardu build similar to yours, and while it can be fun, it's ultimately not good enough. We still miss our Goyf and we still need more closing speed.
The deck would like SFM a lot. I think that you just have to give up Gx Tron MU with this deck - nothing you do will make it good. Just look at Tarmogoyf mid-range decks - their Tron MU is atrocious as well. Having a 2 mana beater isn't going to help there. So, really, the decks you have to race are the combo decks, but we can interact with them through our discard, Tidehollow Sculler, and Gideon of the Trials. Using extraction and effects like Nevermore out of the SB. If they're GY based we have a lot of good answers in Rakdos Charm, Spellbomb, and RIP to diversify the hate so we don't get blown out by enchantment destruction. I like Sculler a lot (I play 2 MB and 1 SB) since he can disrupt and clock the opponent. It's a sort of necessary evil in the deck imho.
The creature decks are never a problem for this deck outside of Eld. Tron and the big issue with them isn't their creatures, it is having an answer for Chalice on time (either discard or G1 EE (I play 1 EE main) / KCommand) or hitting their Karns with discard or them just not drawing them. The Gideon version of the deck stomps Grixis Shadow hard especially if you play less bolt effects (I play 3 Push, 3 Path, 2 Bolt, 1 EE, 1 C.B., 1 Helix, 2 Terminate, 2 KCommand, 3 Gideon of the Trials). Between that and our discard we are heavily favored (especially if you play 1 of's of grindier cards to go along with Bob such as Reveler and Abbot).
I just want to say against the creature decks once you get to 5 mana and have SGM on the field the game is pretty much over. She is inevitability incarnate. The same is true against Eld. Tron if you can dodge Karn / All is Dust since having her and path/terminate means you can pick off a creature a turn and they don't play that much removal.
SGM is a nice card, but I don't think it does much in our bad MUs.
Leave Tron aside, nowadays nobody plays that deck. Everybody is on Eldrazi Tron. I don't think SGM is that good vs them. You say we should hope to dodge Karn, All is Dust, Ugin and Ulamog alongside their SB bombs like Butcher of Truth or Great Distortion if they play them. And how do you plan to do that? You need to be obscenely lucky for them not to draw these cards, since they have ways to draw cards and sometimes even play Sanctum of Ugin. All of this is not to mention Walking Ballista, Chalice of the Void and Endbringer. Let's be honest. The Eldrazi Tron MU is abysmal if you're playing Mardu Midrange type decks. We're slow closing the game out and they have a lot of great topdecks. I've been having success vs Eldrazi Tron with Nahiri builds and Kiki builds, but never with midrange Bob builds. Goyf would be great in this MU actually. A 5/6 Goyf can fight with their beasts, our small creatures can't.
Valakut is abysmal as well. You usually can't extract Valakut. If they're smart, they won't let you do that.
Although I like the idea of a Mardu Midrange deck, the truth is, there are several abysmal MUs and this is why I moved towards playing Nahiri or Kiki versions, at least I give myself a chance of "comboing off" one way or another instead of being forced to try to outgrind opponents I simply can't outgrind.
So I think SGM is a "win more" card: solid in MUs that are already good, doesn't improve significantly any of the bad ones (most importantly: Eldrazi Tron and Valakut).
E. Tron decks generally play 2 Karn and 1-2 All is Dust. They don't play Ulamog or Ugin. I think SGM is a much better card than Lingering Souls for example if we're talking our bad MU's. It's the reason I don't play that card MB. You either hope to Thoughtseize/Sculler their card or hope they don't draw it and that goes for any of the versions of the deck. All is Dust is not the worst, but Karn certainly is. SGM is great in the MU imho since they don't play much removal and it gives a large life buffer so you don't get pinged out later in the game by a huge Walking Ballista. Its upsides are huge compared to something like Lingering Souls.
Endbringer is not a big deal for the deck. You play a ton of ways to kill it, or discard it. It's why you play 4 Thoughtseize and 2 IoK. Yes, Chalice is a big game if you don't discard it or have EE/Kcommand in time, but that's the same for a lot of decks in the format against Chalice. SGM doesn't really have anything to do with that, since if you can't Path or Tseize in the MU you're in a lot of trouble.
Against Valakut you extract/nevermore Primetime/Scapeshift and then Gideon can deal with Valakut. Gideon has been a huge addition to the deck. So, yeah, it's not as bad as you can make it to be (plus Sculler disrupts and beats down). The deck has a ton of disruption for both Combo and creature decks. It's not the best deck in the format obviously, but it's probably one of the better iterations of Mardu atm. (As you can see I'm not a big fan of Wall of Omens/L. Souls/Nahiri version, but we each have our opinions :p)
Gideon can't "deal with Valakut". When they start chaining Titans you will get hit by 6/12 damages per turn, and Gideon will have short life, he can only slow them down a little bit. If they cast Scapeshift, it's gg. Sculler is not very good vs Valakut. I suggest you testing this MU, I believe it's our single worst MU (especially if they play Scapeshift) and must be something like 20-80%.
Eldrazi Tron is slightly better, but still solidly negative. Trying to trade 1for1 with their beasts with Thoughtseize and Path usually isn't good enough. They have too many threats. They have little removal, but we have few creatures, so usually Bob won't stick anyway. Both Bob and SGM can be killed fairly easily by Walking Ballista. I really don't think SGM can turn this MU around. We can't really beat something like Chalice->Reshaper->TKS->Smasher->Endbringer->Karn. I'm not saying they'll have all of these cards at once but they will draw them, alongside Ballistas, during the course of the game. Our topdecks are so much worse than theirs. For the record, the vast majority of Eldrazi Tron decks runs 3x All is Dust in the 75, usually 2x main and 1x side, and they often have some bombs for the lategame. The top 8 list from Vegas has 3x All is Dust in the 75, 2x Karn main and 1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger main. Some lists even play Wurmcoil Engine and Batterskull, like the one that arrived 21st at Vegas.
If you play a Mardu Midrange deck with no Lingering Souls, you're certainly a brave deckbuilder. Souls is well known for being a great card in Modern and people splash decks in order to play it. I can imagine a Mardu Midrange deck without Souls, but I think such a deck would become more vulnerable to midrange and control, and even to Affinity. I think if I'm playing Mardu Midrange, I always want at least 3x Lingering Souls in my maindeck.
To be very clear, I think a lot of what you say makes sense and SGM is a good magic card, and very good in Mardu colors. However, I believe you're underestimating how bad the Valakut/Scapeshift and Eldrazi Tron MUs actually are, and you're overestimating the ability of SGM to impact these MUs.
The single best card vs Eldrazi for me has been Nahiri. If you're not forced to just trade her with 1 Eldrazi or have her in multiples, she can really take control of the board and is really threatening for them. VS Valakut the best thing for me has been Runed Halo. The great thing about Halo is it's also solid vs Eldrazi Tron, especially when you name TKS, Smasher or Ballista, and it's the best way to fight Etched Champion and hexproof creatures. Also, it's a solid card vs Burn and Shadow.
Re: Souls...It's a good card, but like you said about SGM, it's really only good in our all ready good MU's (control is like <2% of the meta I don't really care about that MU) and I'd rather have SGM due to 1) curve considerations 2) flood protection 3) mitigate bob and 4) make sure my burn MU MB is as good as can be so I don't have to dedicate any SB cards to it so I can focus on combo, gy, artifact and go-wide strategies. I play 2 Souls in the SB because it is one of the better cards in certain MU's and there is some merit to making sure I keep my advantage in post-board games. Rakdos Charm allows you to open up a slot so I use it for souls (as it is GY and artifact hate in one). Souls is also SUPER slow and mid-range / control decks are at an all-time low right now in Modern.
My affinity MU is not the worst, it generally comes down to how many Etched Champions they have in play, but that's always been the case for interactive decks against affinity. Kalitas does a lot of work in this MU if you can get to him since it makes racing with Etched Champion impossible if they don't have a plating in play.
I have a few tests to share:
1) Gideon of trials is a good card. Is quite stellar in some matchups but rarely can win the game on his own. BUT Gideon followed by nahiri is a HUGE deal. Nahiri's build always have the same problem: protect nahiri. We're (at least I) trying to protect her with our own creatures and removal spells but this isn't quite effective since our creatures can't keep up with removals and heavy beaters. Gideon can fill ths role quite well.
2) Jötun Grunt is better then I though. Unfortunetly he won't last against decks that don't fill it's own graveyard that much (such as hatebears/Death and Taxes). But he's a great addition to the Resto package as you can blink him to reset his counters.
3) Glory bound: I really like the card but we can't afford to tap a creature for 2 turns. It's a marginal advantage.
4) Soulfire GM: I love the card but she is a win-more card. Perhaps a 1-of as a possible mana sink late game.
5) Death Shadow's: I tried the Squadron Hawk in the package. I always saw SQ as a junkie card but now I know why is a petty card to some people. It felt quite good to play it. Because of this I'm testing a junkie combination of 4 D. Shadow + 4 Squadron Hawk + Gather the townsfolk + 4 Street Wrath. The reason is pretty simple: speeding up the deck.
A Squadron on turn 2 means that you have 4 flying blockers (or beaters) for the next 4 turns. Not only that...if you're on the play by turn 2 our deck is down to 52 cards (without cracking any fetchs). Playing the SQ effectivly give you blockers/beaters and reducing the deck to 48 cards. With street wraiths, we're going dow to effectivly 44. With ranger of eos in play, to 42. By cracking two fetches (at least), by turn 4 we're down to 40 cards.
This is translated to better probability of drawing our answers.
That been said, I'm yet to test against tier 1 decks.
Minor observations about DShadows: Gather the townsfolk is a nice combination. But the card that really surprised me was hanweir battlements. Much better then Slayer's Stronghold. Much more mana efficient, faster...
Those out there that are still playing DS Mardu...try the hanweir battlements.
Re: Souls...It's a good card, but like you said about SGM, it's really only good in our all ready good MU's (control is like <2% of the meta I don't really care about that MU) and I'd rather have SGM due to 1) curve considerations 2) flood protection 3) mitigate bob and 4) make sure my burn MU MB is as good as can be so I don't have to dedicate any SB cards to it so I can focus on combo, gy, artifact and go-wide strategies. I play 2 Souls in the SB because it is one of the better cards in certain MU's and there is some merit to making sure I keep my advantage in post-board games. Rakdos Charm allows you to open up a slot so I use it for souls (as it is GY and artifact hate in one). Souls is also SUPER slow and mid-range / control decks are at an all-time low right now in Modern.
My affinity MU is not the worst, it generally comes down to how many Etched Champions they have in play, but that's always been the case for interactive decks against affinity. Kalitas does a lot of work in this MU if you can get to him since it makes racing with Etched Champion impossible if they don't have a plating in play.
It's a fine list, I like it, and one can see you put a lot of work in it.
Besides my opinion of this deck as an archetype not being good enough because of his MU vs big mana decks, there are 3 main things that I would change in your build.
1). Lingering Souls. To each his opinion. But I really don't see how something like Bedlam Reveler or Kalitas is better than Lingering Souls. Especially in a Bob deck. By the way, control is not at all time low, control lists did well in the recent GPs. Although I love little Gideon, he is yet another card that simply isn't quite as good as Lingering Souls. I would personally remove Kalitas and Bedlam (Kalitas can go in the sideboard), as well as one copy of Gideon, and play 3 maindeck Lingering Souls in that list.
2). I would work the removal suite a bit differently. You have a lot of removal for creatures. Why not play Dreadbore then? Planeswalkers are an issue for a deck like this one. Also, I believe Path is the best removal in the format and should be played in 4 copies. There are several situations where Path is the only thing that works. So I would go -2 Terminate, -1 something else like EE, and play 4th Path and 2x Dreadbore.
3). I think Lost Legacy is a trash card and don't understand why some people play it. I would rather use something like Runed Halo or Surgical Extraction. I think you could also find room for at least a second copy of Stony Silence, Sculler and Liliana seem like easy cuts. Last point on the sideboard: no hate for Burn. You said you don't need it. I'm skeptical. I don't think your list has a positive MU with Burn. I'm not saying the MU is horrible, but it doesn't look positive. I think you could use a couple Blessed Alliance, which are good cards in other MUs as well such as Eldrazi Tron or Bogles (and even Affinity).
1) Bedlam Reveler allows us to more liberally use our removal as well as being a great draw mid-late game. You want some number of creatures like this when you're playing Kolaghan's Command - he's also another cheap threat in a deck like this. All points to include him. As for Kalitas, he's one of your best cards against go wide strategies and can turn the tide against Dredge (caveats of Conflagrate withstanding). Again, you want a high impact card in certain MU's, plus he synergizes with our removal package very well. I wanted 3 "value" or high impact cards in the deck to get back along with the Bob's and SGM with K.Command.
As for control...if you look at the meta combining UW, UWR, Esper and Grixis, it's under <4%. It's also not well-represented in Day 2's. You should be SB'ing for the decks you expect to face on Day 2 as the goal is to win the tournament. (or say, RPTQ Top 8s) As always, local metas, yadda yadda yadda.
Again, you are looking at cards in a vacuum instead of in context - case in point Gideon. You say my burn MU isn't that good, but then say I should be cutting Gideon, one of the best cards in the deck against Burn. In context, Souls is just not where you want to be right now imho (at least MB). SB it's fine to have a few.
2) Yes, I do - it's the strength of Mardu and you should absolutely take advantage of that fact. It allows us to have very good creature MU's so we focus our SB on the archetypes and decks we have trouble with. It's why Anger is a bit nice because it simultaneously is very good against Dredge a bad MU and has application against creature swarm decks where 1:1 removal isn't exactly the best. It's also why Liliana is so good in the SB as well since it is both a value card and one of our better answers to opposing Lingering Souls and go wide strategies.
I don't play Dreadbore because I value instant speed above the utility of hitting PW'ers. The downside of being sorcery speed is going to be more apparent in a 15 round tournament than the ability to kill a PW. Gideon is a big PW killer in the deck.
As for Path...yeah I agree, which is why I have waffled between 3 and 4, but I also don't want to ramp my opponent early in the game so I went with 3. You only need 1 to lock creatures out with SGM. Terminate is underrated in Mardu. It gets around Chalice and kills most everything in the format dead. It's good. Also, EE is great right now as it answers swarm decks, tokens, etched champions, multiple DS's, Chalice of the Void, etc. On top of that you take 0 from Bob from it. It's very versatile - I'd also recommend running 1 right now. Plus, it's killer on 2 against the Company decks who run a ton of 2 drops.
3) That's fine. Extraction effects are polarizing. It's the cheapest card for the effect you absolutely want against combo decks imho. People play it because extracting Ad Naus wins you the game. Extracting Past in Flames goes a long way to winning (or conversely Empty the Warrens if you have GY hate in play/hand). Extracting Primetime against Valakut goes a long way to winning. Extracting Living End wins you most games. These are all really tough MU's for the deck. I don't understand why you think this is a trash card...
Runed Halo is OK against some of your tough MU's like Valakut, but it doesn't really do anything against Ad Naus (they will win with Lab Maniac), Living End, Storm (they will kill you with Empty the Warrens post-board - you recommended cutting EE, now you only have 1 out in the deck, Anger), etc. If I want a removal spell, I'll play a 4th Path in the SB. I want the most efficient card that gives me the best chances of beating combo decks - Lost Legacy is that card. As for Surgical - I don't want cards that require me to 1) draw and play a discard effect and 2) hope my opponent has their combo card in their hand. I want to draw my hate card and it be effective 100% of the time.
Now as I say that, you really really need to keep in mind a lot of these decks play Leyline of Sanctity out of the board (this is the sole reason I play 1 Nevermore to hedge against Leyline draws). Always bring in Wear // Tear and then you just have to pray. It sucks, but it's a thing. Plus, again, Gideon is a house against stuff like Ad Naus.
There's really no need for a 2nd Stony. My affinity MU is quite good, but Stony has other utility in other MU's hence I play 1. If I had a bad affinity MU, I'd play 2. Again, you recommend cutting cards that are good against the decks worst MU's advocating to include a 2nd Stony which is good against MU's where you're all ready favored. Sculler is one of your best cards against combo and uninteractive decks. You absolutely want to disrupt and clock them - Sculler is great for this. (Sculler is also sneakily very good against Burn)
As for cutting Liliana, it's a slot that you can bring in against Control, but it also answers one of the decks weaknesses - Tokens/Lingering Souls. She's versatile. I want a card like her to fill that versatility slot in the SB.
For burn MU...you should give the deck a whirl against them. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
PS: I don't care about Bogles MU. If I get paired up against that 0.1% of the meta deck so be it.
Lost Legacy only draws 4 if they had four copies in their hand -- usually they're replacing 1, maybe 2 cards. Going down one card is a very reasonable price to pay for largely neutralizing a combo deck's game plan.
As shelldell just said legacy only draws if it's in their hand. Against combo decks it's pretty backbreaking for 3 mana even if they do draw a card and rarely 2 cards. Against living end, hitting that card gives you so much time it's unbelievable, if you have any sort of clock you are almost guaranteed to win as they will have basically no clock till like t5 at the earliest. If you can't deal with 1 dude a turn as mardu past t5, you need to tweek your deck.
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Current Decks:
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange BWG Abzan value evolution BUG BUG Midrange
Claim // Fame seems like a better version of Orzhov Charm in the DS brews.
Since it can revive 2-drops as well maybe Dark Confidant should be reconsidered for those lists.
No Emrakul, The Aeons Torn to go with Nahiri? Personally I'd cut a Liliana for Emrakul if only to have a secondary win condition besides Resto-Kiki loop. Would love to see how it performs, give us a report on your matches?
This is the Flying Midrange list I'm taking tomorrow, I'll write up how it does each round:
No Emrakul, The Aeons Torn to go with Nahiri? Personally I'd cut a Liliana for Emrakul if only to have a secondary win condition besides Resto-Kiki loop. Would love to see how it performs, give us a report on your matches?
I played with Emrakul the last 4 weeks and in my meta the combo is way too slow to be viable. In those 4 weeks I was 5-9 with the deck. My meta as I said earlier is mostly non-affinity aggro (though that may change), and burn, with a few DS and 1 dredge. Liliana might not be that great in the meta but I like overloading on discard effects so I'm always on the attack so to speak.
Claime/Fame looks like a good card. There are so many great targets for it in Modern. Snappy, Goyf, Bob, Baby Jace, Shadow...you name it. This card will see play. And Mardu could be one of those shells. Abbot of Keral Keep can be taken back as well as Young Pyromancer.
The problem is Pyromancer and Bob are not great in DS builds and are also pretty bad late in the game where Claim/Fame is good. Snapcaster, Goyf, and Death Shadows are all cards you want in the late game but as for the others, not as much. Although Keral Keep is great in the late game, his mediocre presence in the early game is the problem.
We need something like Stoneforge Mystic for Claim/ Fame to be really good. For Modern, I'd love to play this card only in Jund where you have so many good late game 2-drops: Grim Flayer, Scavenging Ooze, Grim Lavamancer, Goyf, etc.
If I had finks I would run them.
And yeah, 4 Liliana might be a lot but at my LGS, any given week could have new decks and she is pretty solid all around outside decks like burn which I just side them out.
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Have you tried Eternal Scourge ?
It also is very good at grinding, hard to kill (especially combined with Relic/RiP/Anger) and at least has reasonable stats unlike Squadron Hawk.
If you want to be even jankier it can be paired with Lost Legacy (over Slaughter Games) to draw all of them or get them back from the GY.
As for Squadron Hawk, I'm not advocating for it based on 1 FNM performance, I'm advocating for it based off a month of repeated testing against every deck I can find and every option I have for the 1-2 drop slot. I have yet to find a matchup where I wished Hawk was something else.
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3 Thoughtseize
4 Fatal Push
2 Lightning Helix
1 Dreadbore
2 Lingering Souls
2 Painful Truths
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Grim Lavamancer
4 Dark Confidant
4 Glory-Bound Initiate
3 Abbot of Keral Keep
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet (Flex)
24 Lands:
4 Marsh Flats
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Arid Mesa
2 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
1 Sacred Foundry
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Shambling Vent
1 Needle Spires
2 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Slayers' Stronghold (Flex)
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Collective Brutality
2 Rest in Peace
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Wear//Tear
1 Crackling Doom
1 Lost Legacy
1 Shatterstorm
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
Anyone else have any experience with Glory-Bound Initiate? He's been solid so far. The deck has been surprisingly strong considering I kinda threw it together on a whim. Seems to be at least playable, but then again, a pile of removal and efficient creatures can only be so bad. With the Initiate I feel okay supporting 2 Painful Truths in the main alongside Confidant for a wild ride of card advantage. Slayers' Stronghold was initially just a joke to see if I could start swinging with a 6/4 Vigilant Initiate. After playing with it, its kinda grown on me. It turns Initiates into overdrive and has won me a game or two i had no business winning. It even lets me play "build-your-own-bloodbraid-elf" with lategame Abbots. It still may be worse than a Ghost Quarter but I'm willing to sacrifice power for I felt like i'd share the list. Izzet Staticaster makes very ver sad
I'm always leery of playing X/1's in modern that don't take over games since there is so much X/1 hate in the format. The slayer stronghold interaction is nice, I give you that. I just don't see how he is better than SGM in the deck? The deck is slow as it is and if you're going to have a "threat" stick to the field, SGM synergizes with the deck much more than GBI does. By the way, if you exert him, him & SGM do the same damage over 2 turns (which may not be relevant later in the game since he can trim a turn off the clock if oppo is @ <4 life).
My gut is that the best "version" of the non-nahiri deck is 4 Bob's, 4 SGM, 2 Tidehollow Scullers, 3 Gideon of the Trials, 4 Thoughtseize/2IoK, 1 C.B. and a pile of cheap removal. That way you're "hedged" mostly against other creature decks where Bob, SGM, Gideon, and your removal will win you 65%+ of the games, but you also have a lot of discard and interaction with some of the harder combo MU's as Gideon is quite good in these MU's as is Sculler and you play 7 discard spells on top of it. Then you have a pile of artifact/GY/grindy+small creature hate (Anger as a 1 of is nice as Dredge and small creature deck hate and Liliana the Last Hope is great against the same decks plus Midrange and Control decks). The biggest thing is having enough ways to meaningful interact with your bad combo MU's through extraction effects. My only hesitation here is not wanting to rely entirely on them since Leyline is a thing so I've been playing 2 Lost Legacy and 1 Nevermore to kind of hedge. Not sure if that is right or not, but it's been ok.
PS: At least 1 Rakdos Charm should be in every Mardu SB. It's too flexible to not play 1 as hitting the GY and artifacts is super important and having that in one card is amazing.
The deck would like SFM a lot. I think that you just have to give up Gx Tron MU with this deck - nothing you do will make it good. Just look at Tarmogoyf mid-range decks - their Tron MU is atrocious as well. Having a 2 mana beater isn't going to help there. So, really, the decks you have to race are the combo decks, but we can interact with them through our discard, Tidehollow Sculler, and Gideon of the Trials. Using extraction and effects like Nevermore out of the SB. If they're GY based we have a lot of good answers in Rakdos Charm, Spellbomb, and RIP to diversify the hate so we don't get blown out by enchantment destruction. I like Sculler a lot (I play 2 MB and 1 SB) since he can disrupt and clock the opponent. It's a sort of necessary evil in the deck imho.
The creature decks are never a problem for this deck outside of Eld. Tron and the big issue with them isn't their creatures, it is having an answer for Chalice on time (either discard or G1 EE (I play 1 EE main) / KCommand) or hitting their Karns with discard or them just not drawing them. The Gideon version of the deck stomps Grixis Shadow hard especially if you play less bolt effects (I play 3 Push, 3 Path, 2 Bolt, 1 EE, 1 C.B., 1 Helix, 2 Terminate, 2 KCommand, 3 Gideon of the Trials). Between that and our discard we are heavily favored (especially if you play 1 of's of grindier cards to go along with Bob such as Reveler and Abbot).
I just want to say against the creature decks once you get to 5 mana and have SGM on the field the game is pretty much over. She is inevitability incarnate. The same is true against Eld. Tron if you can dodge Karn / All is Dust since having her and path/terminate means you can pick off a creature a turn and they don't play that much removal.
E. Tron decks generally play 2 Karn and 1-2 All is Dust. They don't play Ulamog or Ugin. I think SGM is a much better card than Lingering Souls for example if we're talking our bad MU's. It's the reason I don't play that card MB. You either hope to Thoughtseize/Sculler their card or hope they don't draw it and that goes for any of the versions of the deck. All is Dust is not the worst, but Karn certainly is. SGM is great in the MU imho since they don't play much removal and it gives a large life buffer so you don't get pinged out later in the game by a huge Walking Ballista. Its upsides are huge compared to something like Lingering Souls.
Endbringer is not a big deal for the deck. You play a ton of ways to kill it, or discard it. It's why you play 4 Thoughtseize and 2 IoK. Yes, Chalice is a big game if you don't discard it or have EE/Kcommand in time, but that's the same for a lot of decks in the format against Chalice. SGM doesn't really have anything to do with that, since if you can't Path or Tseize in the MU you're in a lot of trouble.
Against Valakut you extract/nevermore Primetime/Scapeshift and then Gideon can deal with Valakut. Gideon has been a huge addition to the deck. So, yeah, it's not as bad as you can make it to be (plus Sculler disrupts and beats down). The deck has a ton of disruption for both Combo and creature decks. It's not the best deck in the format obviously, but it's probably one of the better iterations of Mardu atm. (As you can see I'm not a big fan of Wall of Omens/L. Souls/Nahiri version, but we each have our opinions :p)
Re: Souls...It's a good card, but like you said about SGM, it's really only good in our all ready good MU's (control is like <2% of the meta I don't really care about that MU) and I'd rather have SGM due to 1) curve considerations 2) flood protection 3) mitigate bob and 4) make sure my burn MU MB is as good as can be so I don't have to dedicate any SB cards to it so I can focus on combo, gy, artifact and go-wide strategies. I play 2 Souls in the SB because it is one of the better cards in certain MU's and there is some merit to making sure I keep my advantage in post-board games. Rakdos Charm allows you to open up a slot so I use it for souls (as it is GY and artifact hate in one). Souls is also SUPER slow and mid-range / control decks are at an all-time low right now in Modern.
My affinity MU is not the worst, it generally comes down to how many Etched Champions they have in play, but that's always been the case for interactive decks against affinity. Kalitas does a lot of work in this MU if you can get to him since it makes racing with Etched Champion impossible if they don't have a plating in play.
Anyways, for reference this is my decklist:
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
2 Lightning Bolt
1 Collective Brutality
1 Lightning Helix
2 Terminate
2 Kolaghan's Command
Planeswalker:
3 Gideon of the Trials
Discard:
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
Creatures:
4 Dark Confidant
4 Soulfire Grand Master
2 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Abbot of Keral Keep
1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1 Bedlam Reveler
4 Marsh Flats
2 Arid Mesa
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
2 Concealed Courtyard
1 Graven Cairns
1 Rugged Prairie
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
1 Godless Shrine
2 Sacred Foundry
3 Shambling Vent
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Rest in Peace
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Wear // Tear
1 Stony Silence
2 Lost Legacy
1 Nevermore
1 Tidehollow Sculler
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Lingering Souls
1) Gideon of trials is a good card. Is quite stellar in some matchups but rarely can win the game on his own. BUT Gideon followed by nahiri is a HUGE deal. Nahiri's build always have the same problem: protect nahiri. We're (at least I) trying to protect her with our own creatures and removal spells but this isn't quite effective since our creatures can't keep up with removals and heavy beaters. Gideon can fill ths role quite well.
2) Jötun Grunt is better then I though. Unfortunetly he won't last against decks that don't fill it's own graveyard that much (such as hatebears/Death and Taxes). But he's a great addition to the Resto package as you can blink him to reset his counters.
3) Glory bound: I really like the card but we can't afford to tap a creature for 2 turns. It's a marginal advantage.
4) Soulfire GM: I love the card but she is a win-more card. Perhaps a 1-of as a possible mana sink late game.
5) Death Shadow's: I tried the Squadron Hawk in the package. I always saw SQ as a junkie card but now I know why is a petty card to some people. It felt quite good to play it. Because of this I'm testing a junkie combination of 4 D. Shadow + 4 Squadron Hawk + Gather the townsfolk + 4 Street Wrath. The reason is pretty simple: speeding up the deck.
A Squadron on turn 2 means that you have 4 flying blockers (or beaters) for the next 4 turns. Not only that...if you're on the play by turn 2 our deck is down to 52 cards (without cracking any fetchs). Playing the SQ effectivly give you blockers/beaters and reducing the deck to 48 cards. With street wraiths, we're going dow to effectivly 44. With ranger of eos in play, to 42. By cracking two fetches (at least), by turn 4 we're down to 40 cards.
This is translated to better probability of drawing our answers.
That been said, I'm yet to test against tier 1 decks.
Minor observations about DShadows: Gather the townsfolk is a nice combination. But the card that really surprised me was hanweir battlements. Much better then Slayer's Stronghold. Much more mana efficient, faster...
Those out there that are still playing DS Mardu...try the hanweir battlements.
1) Bedlam Reveler allows us to more liberally use our removal as well as being a great draw mid-late game. You want some number of creatures like this when you're playing Kolaghan's Command - he's also another cheap threat in a deck like this. All points to include him. As for Kalitas, he's one of your best cards against go wide strategies and can turn the tide against Dredge (caveats of Conflagrate withstanding). Again, you want a high impact card in certain MU's, plus he synergizes with our removal package very well. I wanted 3 "value" or high impact cards in the deck to get back along with the Bob's and SGM with K.Command.
As for control...if you look at the meta combining UW, UWR, Esper and Grixis, it's under <4%. It's also not well-represented in Day 2's. You should be SB'ing for the decks you expect to face on Day 2 as the goal is to win the tournament. (or say, RPTQ Top 8s) As always, local metas, yadda yadda yadda.
Again, you are looking at cards in a vacuum instead of in context - case in point Gideon. You say my burn MU isn't that good, but then say I should be cutting Gideon, one of the best cards in the deck against Burn. In context, Souls is just not where you want to be right now imho (at least MB). SB it's fine to have a few.
2) Yes, I do - it's the strength of Mardu and you should absolutely take advantage of that fact. It allows us to have very good creature MU's so we focus our SB on the archetypes and decks we have trouble with. It's why Anger is a bit nice because it simultaneously is very good against Dredge a bad MU and has application against creature swarm decks where 1:1 removal isn't exactly the best. It's also why Liliana is so good in the SB as well since it is both a value card and one of our better answers to opposing Lingering Souls and go wide strategies.
I don't play Dreadbore because I value instant speed above the utility of hitting PW'ers. The downside of being sorcery speed is going to be more apparent in a 15 round tournament than the ability to kill a PW. Gideon is a big PW killer in the deck.
As for Path...yeah I agree, which is why I have waffled between 3 and 4, but I also don't want to ramp my opponent early in the game so I went with 3. You only need 1 to lock creatures out with SGM. Terminate is underrated in Mardu. It gets around Chalice and kills most everything in the format dead. It's good. Also, EE is great right now as it answers swarm decks, tokens, etched champions, multiple DS's, Chalice of the Void, etc. On top of that you take 0 from Bob from it. It's very versatile - I'd also recommend running 1 right now. Plus, it's killer on 2 against the Company decks who run a ton of 2 drops.
3) That's fine. Extraction effects are polarizing. It's the cheapest card for the effect you absolutely want against combo decks imho. People play it because extracting Ad Naus wins you the game. Extracting Past in Flames goes a long way to winning (or conversely Empty the Warrens if you have GY hate in play/hand). Extracting Primetime against Valakut goes a long way to winning. Extracting Living End wins you most games. These are all really tough MU's for the deck. I don't understand why you think this is a trash card...
Runed Halo is OK against some of your tough MU's like Valakut, but it doesn't really do anything against Ad Naus (they will win with Lab Maniac), Living End, Storm (they will kill you with Empty the Warrens post-board - you recommended cutting EE, now you only have 1 out in the deck, Anger), etc. If I want a removal spell, I'll play a 4th Path in the SB. I want the most efficient card that gives me the best chances of beating combo decks - Lost Legacy is that card. As for Surgical - I don't want cards that require me to 1) draw and play a discard effect and 2) hope my opponent has their combo card in their hand. I want to draw my hate card and it be effective 100% of the time.
Now as I say that, you really really need to keep in mind a lot of these decks play Leyline of Sanctity out of the board (this is the sole reason I play 1 Nevermore to hedge against Leyline draws). Always bring in Wear // Tear and then you just have to pray. It sucks, but it's a thing. Plus, again, Gideon is a house against stuff like Ad Naus.
There's really no need for a 2nd Stony. My affinity MU is quite good, but Stony has other utility in other MU's hence I play 1. If I had a bad affinity MU, I'd play 2. Again, you recommend cutting cards that are good against the decks worst MU's advocating to include a 2nd Stony which is good against MU's where you're all ready favored. Sculler is one of your best cards against combo and uninteractive decks. You absolutely want to disrupt and clock them - Sculler is great for this. (Sculler is also sneakily very good against Burn)
As for cutting Liliana, it's a slot that you can bring in against Control, but it also answers one of the decks weaknesses - Tokens/Lingering Souls. She's versatile. I want a card like her to fill that versatility slot in the SB.
For burn MU...you should give the deck a whirl against them. You'll be pleasantly surprised.
PS: I don't care about Bogles MU. If I get paired up against that 0.1% of the meta deck so be it.
Modern: BG eldrazi midrange
BWG Abzan value evolution
BUG BUG Midrange
Tiny Leaders: BW Athreos Zombies
Commander: BG Gitrog Monster
Since it can revive 2-drops as well maybe Dark Confidant should be reconsidered for those lists.
3 Restoration Angel
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker
4 Wall of Omens
4 Liliana of the Veil
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
4 Fatal Push
4 Path to Exile
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Collective Brutality
2 Terminate
3 Kolaghan's Command
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Shambling Vents
1 Mountain
1 Graven Cairns
2 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Thoughtseize
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Rest in Peace
2 Stony Silence
2 Damnation
1 Hallowed Moonlight
Current list I'm taking to FNM tomorrow.
(246-174-26)
This is the Flying Midrange list I'm taking tomorrow, I'll write up how it does each round:
2 Arid Mesa
2 Marsh Flats
1 Godless Shrine
1 Blood Crypt
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Canyon Slough
2 Plains
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Concealed Courtyard
1 Inspiring Vantage
2 Mirran Crusader
2 Thunderbreak Regent
3 Butcher of the Horde
1 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Tombstalker
1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
2 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Ajani Vengeant
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Path to Exile
2 Fatal Push
1 Collective Brutality
1 Terminate
1 Dreadbore
1 Crackling Doom
1 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lingering Souls
2 Stony Silence
2 Crackling Doom
2 Crumble to Dust
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Ethersworn Canonist
1 Slaughter Games
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Wrath of God
I played with Emrakul the last 4 weeks and in my meta the combo is way too slow to be viable. In those 4 weeks I was 5-9 with the deck. My meta as I said earlier is mostly non-affinity aggro (though that may change), and burn, with a few DS and 1 dredge. Liliana might not be that great in the meta but I like overloading on discard effects so I'm always on the attack so to speak.
(246-174-26)
The problem is Pyromancer and Bob are not great in DS builds and are also pretty bad late in the game where Claim/Fame is good. Snapcaster, Goyf, and Death Shadows are all cards you want in the late game but as for the others, not as much. Although Keral Keep is great in the late game, his mediocre presence in the early game is the problem.
We need something like Stoneforge Mystic for Claim/ Fame to be really good. For Modern, I'd love to play this card only in Jund where you have so many good late game 2-drops: Grim Flayer, Scavenging Ooze, Grim Lavamancer, Goyf, etc.
Why only in Jund ?