One the things I'm really enjoying about this deck is how unoptimized it still seems. The deck is still getting enough results to be considered tier 1, and we're not just discussing a handful of flex spots and sideboard options, but creatures, spells, even entire colors many thought were core parts of the deck. It has me thinking that we aren't anywhere near the ceiling for the deck, in terms of power.
I also played around 10 matches with the manamorphose deck and was pleasantly surprised by how seamless things moved. Not as fast, which seems to be common among the junnd lists, but more consistent.
I agree with this. It seems that the deck is more consistent at times but can be a bit slower. It can still have explosive turns but they are less frequent but because of that it's more stable.
I think there is room for some 1 of's in the main at the cost of cutting a Transverse or Manamorphose. Some thoughts were Tarfire or Become Immense. If I was to play Become Immense I would probably cut a Transverse. That seems to be the card I have been cutting to make room for flex slots. The manamorphose cantrip is important. I would probably cut manamorphose if there was a more counter heavy environment, reason being is because I don't want to be time walked when I'm trying to be aggressive.
The deck tends to get delirium on turn 2 pretty often and overall seems to play pretty smooth. I need to test more against the decks bad matchups to see how that translates with this deck. I think some of the choices that deck makes helps edge the badmatchups.
Couple of interesting things I have found with the deck.
1) Transverse works well as a pump spell. You can fetch street wraith for the draw or a fetchland in order to lose 3 life ( if you have delirium). That is a pretty neat option and definitely not optimal but worth nothing.
2) In decks that play spellskite their targets are much slimmer due to BI being cut.
3) Playing Manamorphose can be tricky and opens up a new line of thought and skill. In the 4c version your skill came in sequencing lands in such a way that you could optimize your turns and spells played. In this deck being 3 colored reduces that decision tree a bit but with Manamorphose it opens it up. You have to think about when to play it, what colors to name, and what potential things you could draw since the mana will not carry over in phases.
Overall testing seems pretty good. Made a change to the sb by cutting Ancient Grudge for Natural State. Having the option for an enchantment to be destroyed is important. Might be room for abrupt decay to but we will see.
I tested the deck as well and wholeheartedly agree, It's about one turn slower and doesn't self inflict damage as effectively I couldn't say if this version is worse or better but it most definitely has to be played differently. I agree with dropping a manamorphose for a B.I. I think 2 manamorphose is optimum. I think the elemental card is unnecessary and can be a poor draw I do like the rampage it got in there on quite a few games.
I think traverse needs to be dropped to three, it can be dead and having basic lands is a bit awkward. My favorite Interactions are the first turn delirium and the way manamorphose synergizes with bauble.
How do you guys feel about Grim Flayer in the deck?
I tested the deck as well and wholeheartedly agree, It's about one turn slower and doesn't self inflict damage as effectively I couldn't say if this version is worse or better but it most definitely has to be played differently. I agree with dropping a manamorphose for a B.I. I think 2 manamorphose is optimum. I think the elemental card is unnecessary and can be a poor draw I do like the rampage it got in there on quite a few games.
I think traverse needs to be dropped to three, it can be dead and having basic lands is a bit awkward. My favorite Interactions are the first turn delirium and the way manamorphose synergizes with bauble.
How do you guys feel about Grim Flayer in the deck?
I agree with a lot of what you said, and I think the lack of self damage comes from dropping to 15 lands and adding basics. Drawing basic lands in this deck is definitely a feel bad moment. If I dropped 2 manamorphose, it'd probably be to add a BI + Mutagenic Growth, so we're running the same amount of instants.
Grim flayer could be good, but I feel like golf is probably still just better. Might drop the elemental for it to test though.
Look at the card. Now back to Jace. Now back to that card, now back to Jace! Sadly, it isn't Jace, but if it stopped being a junk rare and became relevant, it could act like it's Jace. Crack some Worldwake. What do you have? You have a Jace, the card you wish this card could be like. Look again. THE CARD IS NOW A $75 BILL. Anything possible when you play Magic with Jace and not junk rares. This is probably spam.
How are people doing in general with the deck? I started off with the deck with around a 60% win rate, then dropped to 30-35%, then back up to 50-55% for a long time, and now I'm back in the gutter at 33-40% (last 30 matches/games). I record every game I play, and I recently crossed over 200 games. I'm starting to get frustrated with the deck again. I get into positions where I have to punish myself b/c my board stalled and I need to draw cards, then I just lose b/c I took too much damage or just don't get the draws I need.
I was thinking grim flayer in the sb or bob. I don't know how necessary 2 lavamancers are with 4 transverse. One benefit of the grim flayer over goyf is that if you get it double strike you get to see 6 cards and you could potentially set up situations to hit for 2 to 4 damage the first time, look, see a pump spell, cycle or manamorphose to draw then pump flayer to hit for more damage. Very out there but possible lines of play.
I would caution cutting manamorphose down to 2. The reason the deck can run 15 lands is it runs more cantrips. Cutting ways to draw cards will make your mana problems start to pop up.
As far as cutting another Traverse? Not sure, I have been running 3 and it seems pretty good so far. There are some cool tricks with it. You can find a fetchland crack it and shock to pump death shadow. You can also find street wraith to draw a card essentially moving 3 cards out of your deck. You can find gore-clan or the elemental for certain situations or just another body. It's pretty versatile.
I also like the haster elemental for a few reasons. You can turn delirium on with him. You can trigger ferocious with him, and he also allows for hasty kills out of the blue. I look at it this way, he is at least better than top decking a steppe lynx and can potentially be cast and do 4 damage.
Few changes I made to sideboard so far is removed an ancient grudge for natural state, and debating on removing a flame slash for a dismember. This will allow for some instant speed removal and some life lose.
That is a good plan. Helps see where the issue is at.
I was also going to say that with the deck becoming more popular people are learning how to play against it more effectively so lines of play are tighter and little luck goes a long way.
Some thoughts after playing 20 more matches with the JUL deck. Keep in mind I am comparing this to the non-steppe lynx varients I have been testing, both the jund and 4 color varients.
Cons:
1) The deck is slower, by a significant margin. Turn 3's are nearly non-existent while turn 4's occur but are still not common. Usually it's turn 5-6 that closes the game out. With only 3 mutagenic growths and no become immense's, your only game-ending threats are the death's shadows.
2) 15 lands can really screw you up at times. A one land hand packed full of battlerages and manamorphose's can feel really risky. Traverse helps, but delirium becomes more difficult to achieve if you can'y use the manamorphose's.
3) No way to deal with threats main deck. The deck runs 4 thought-seize, which I will touch on later, but a top decked thalia can be back breaking, especially with how land light the deck is.
Pros:
1) While the deck is technically slower, it feels SO much smoother thanks to the traverse the uvenwalds. Yeah, you are definitely not solitaring the way other decks do, but in actually games you will have an opponent that will attempt to interact with you. We all know how difficult a standard jund hand of IOK, terminate, liliana can be, significantly slowing us down barring godly topdecks, but I feel much more comfortable running this deck against jund because traverse not only improves our topdecks, but also makes it harder for jund to deal with all of our threats. Not just jund, but all decks really, and the deck is slower, but I would imagine that the win percentages on the "late game" is much higher. I felt good when running it as a 2 of in the other list that had popped up, but I feel it needs to be at least a 3 of. The versatility of this card can't really be understated, especially in this deck. Having the ability to run silver bullet main deck and sideboard cards, and have a way to consistently grab them, is HUGE. For people mehing the elemental, give it a go. Surprising your opponent with a hasted death's shadow is great. When snapcaster came into the picture, I picked up 2 playsets because I knew it was going to increase in price. When this was printed I picked up 4 playsets, and might pick up some more. I think this card has been criminally overlooked, and as WOTC continues to experiment with dual typings (Artifact creature, Enchantment Creature, Land creature, Tribal Instant), this card only gets better.
2) I really like 4 TS in the main. I said I would touch on this later, while no answer to threats in the MD can feel a little blah sitting across from a thalia, I still think it's the better choice for the deck. It shores up so many math-ups, both good and bad, and futhers the lifeloss for Death's shadow.
3) When you have 2 lands, manamorphose is amazing. We already knew running only 48 cards in the maindeck was great, running 44 is even better. "Free" cyclers are the bee's knees.
Overall I really am enjoying the manamorphose deck. I am going to start tweaking some of the varients, incorporating some of the stuff I liked and changing some of the stuff I didn't like. As someone said before, I think 1 BI is probably alright, to give at least a chance of comboing off. I don't think we need any burn in the main deck, but I might be open to either a singleton tarfire or seal of fire might be ok to enable delirium. I think the land count could be increased, but not too much. 16 is probably right. I am going to toy with manamorphose numbers, but I think they deserve some main deck inclusion considering they are a "free" cycler, just unsure of how much I want to run 4 of them in the land light deck like this.
I tested the tarfire and it wasn't impressive. Cutting a manamorphose for BI is pretty good. Already made the change and it's smooth. I have been able to pilot turn 3 kills but more often it's turn 4 and 5.
I also agree this deck feels much much better against bad match ups. Jund is better and so is bant eldrazi.
Yeah josh's list is slower than tradional lists, but I think there is definitely something there to expand upon. Our deck is fast, not really because of the combo itself, but because we can assemble the combo easier than other decks because our deck is running essentially 20% less cards. in JUL's deck, you actually end up seeing more cards than you would see in a tradtional list, thanks to the low land count + manamorphose + traverse. This is what has me excited about the list, because by tweaking the numbers a bit, we might end up MUCH faster, since the deck blows through so many cards.
Both versions are good. I had similar thoughts about slowing down and losing that advantage but you actually gain advantage against bad matching with this version.
The goal of 4c is to land death shadow as soon as possible. Your chances to win games increases dramatically. With JUL deck you can land it turn 2 pretty often. Mostly because you can tutor for it.
I think with some tweaking we can get the deck to be stable as well as fas5. I have alr3ady started playing with the numbers to get there. 1 BI is in the list now. Maybe cut the swamp got another shock or a fetch for a shock. Minor tweaks here and there. I cut a slash for dismember to help life lose and removal
I'm play testing a version running 2 grim flayers and a bit more land. The increase in mana only slightly effected the speed of the deck thanks to the improved cycling with manamorphose. Having support to cast two mana creatures teamed with the ability to tutor any creature from our decks gives us a ferocious arsenal of side deck creatures on command. I appreciate everyone who is posting results of there play tests with this version, I'm going to be bringing this to the Indianapolis Prand Prix Friday.
I'm also taking a look at Soul Flayer, potential for 4/4 with Haste, Death touch and trample for one mana. It can be tutored and is effective as a defensive wall, or death stroke.
I'm also playing this version as well at the Grand Prix. How is grim flayer working? I was thinking of sideboarding him as a one of and testing. I can see some crazy lines of play with him and double strike.
Two changes I'm playing around with is either an additional shockland in place of one of the 15, or maybe cutting a copy of grim lavamancer from the sb. Not sure for what yet but I don't know if two is necessary but I could be wrong.
As you may have noticed I am not running Gnarlroot Trappers. In my playtesting I found there were enough instances where she would enter the field as a 1/1. A 1/1 with deathtouch is fine is most decks but most definitely not ours. I prefer Wild Nacatl at 2/2 which is typically her worst in my experience to the former.
This is still a Delirium Deck and the real all-star is Traverse the Ulvenwald. Traverse allows us to tutor creatures making our match one wins faster and allowing us a diverse but intentional creature sideboard.
I have dropped manamorphose for Faithless Looting. If you have concerns about this choice you owe it to yourself to playtest it. We run into a lot of dead cards in our deck at times, and being able to draw two and chuck the useless excess, all the while fueling our delirium makes this card outright insane. Morphose felt like I slammed into a brick wall that then asked me a riddle to proceed. Looting makes you feel like your decks in your hand.
Grim Flayer Do yourself a favor, buy this card while it is eight dollars. This is a two cost 4/4 with trample and no downside. It has Haste to start putting damage downrange on your opponent bringing him within range of the kill shot of your death shadow, that he helps you draw.
Postmortem Lunge You know what sucks worse than a lightning bolt? Summoning sickness luckily for you this cures them both simultaneously. Do yourself a favor, ever have that awkward moment when you’re at 10 life and have a death shadow in hand. That little voice nips at you "summmmonnn heeeem".. Because if you don’t you'll have to wait an entire turn to cast him right? Waiting sucks. Do this. Summon him as a 3/3 with a little sticky note that says bolt me, and then summon him back for the same cost, except with two more attack and oh yeah haste. Also Grim flayer + this. Also reckless looting + this. Opponents Thoughtsieze + this.
Soulflayer - It's a one mana 4/4 with Trample, Haste and (deathtouch because I know you won’t leave Gnarlroot be) QUIT playing the MONKEYS.
It's not your typical 15 single card wide board. This is focused, simple and will win you a lot of tough matches.
Spellskite - Burn is a severe matchup. It's at two because it's often too late by the time we have the three mana to tutor then cast.
Stony Silence I see that players are being niche and have been playing these one tap single artifact destroyers that annoy affinity, well this card beats affinity, it's time tested and proven. With the amount of thinning we have running two of these is like running four.
Phyrexian Unlife this card will save your life against burn, we lose to burn hard. We share the expertise off lowering our life with them. This card is at three because it's mandatory we draw it in a burn match up and it's versatile in any match up that you find yourself taking too much damage. If you draw extra pitch it with reckless. At first glance this can be dismissed, what's 10 more life to a burn deck? What's not taken into account is how deadly we are at zero life. Its prime spell slinger hunting season then. One Mana size 13 deaths shadows clean the game up very quickly.
Mirran Crusader This card will cleave a Tarmagoyf in twain, laugh at kalitas. It gets past 99% of Azban Company while singing can’t touch this. It also has Temur Battle Rage preinstalled. Super fun.
Dismember This gives you control over your life, and wipes almost ALL threats off the field in modern. I wouldn't run path of exile it puts us an entire turn behind.
Apostle's Blessing This is easily the best card in the sideboard. If you want to reach for something like grafdiggers so you can plop it on field and shield yourself with it go for it. That strategy isn’t the best with our aggressive build, this protects your kill but more importantly it gains you card advantage. Decks like Jund don't win because they aggro you better (in most cases). Their goal out the gate is every time you play two cards they want to kill them with one. This card is probably about a dollar, use it to make them waste there 50 dollar card. This requires timing, patience and practice but it will get you farther in tournament.
Phyrexian Crusader Oh boy how to explain this one. You’re going to a MTG Grand Prix. You stayed up all night practicing against the best decks in the format. Jund, Junk, NP. Gots this. round one begins and you see a shribbled old lady card on the field...you lean in to read it and is says Martyr of the Sands. Then you lose.
It's not pretty and it's embarrassing but we LOSE to soul sisters. 36 life first turn with 7/7 one cost angels with life link rain down on us and all we can do is kill ourselves to make it end faster isn’t pretty. This helps you against weird decks. MILL is a scary matchup, there are TONS of homebrews you've never seen. This can get you out off a bad situation. Coupla’ Mutagenics and a Temur will make it all go away.
I also played around 10 matches with the manamorphose deck and was pleasantly surprised by how seamless things moved. Not as fast, which seems to be common among the junnd lists, but more consistent.
My H/W list
I think there is room for some 1 of's in the main at the cost of cutting a Transverse or Manamorphose. Some thoughts were Tarfire or Become Immense. If I was to play Become Immense I would probably cut a Transverse. That seems to be the card I have been cutting to make room for flex slots. The manamorphose cantrip is important. I would probably cut manamorphose if there was a more counter heavy environment, reason being is because I don't want to be time walked when I'm trying to be aggressive.
The deck tends to get delirium on turn 2 pretty often and overall seems to play pretty smooth. I need to test more against the decks bad matchups to see how that translates with this deck. I think some of the choices that deck makes helps edge the badmatchups.
Couple of interesting things I have found with the deck.
1) Transverse works well as a pump spell. You can fetch street wraith for the draw or a fetchland in order to lose 3 life ( if you have delirium). That is a pretty neat option and definitely not optimal but worth nothing.
2) In decks that play spellskite their targets are much slimmer due to BI being cut.
3) Playing Manamorphose can be tricky and opens up a new line of thought and skill. In the 4c version your skill came in sequencing lands in such a way that you could optimize your turns and spells played. In this deck being 3 colored reduces that decision tree a bit but with Manamorphose it opens it up. You have to think about when to play it, what colors to name, and what potential things you could draw since the mana will not carry over in phases.
Overall testing seems pretty good. Made a change to the sb by cutting Ancient Grudge for Natural State. Having the option for an enchantment to be destroyed is important. Might be room for abrupt decay to but we will see.
I think traverse needs to be dropped to three, it can be dead and having basic lands is a bit awkward. My favorite Interactions are the first turn delirium and the way manamorphose synergizes with bauble.
How do you guys feel about Grim Flayer in the deck?
I agree with a lot of what you said, and I think the lack of self damage comes from dropping to 15 lands and adding basics. Drawing basic lands in this deck is definitely a feel bad moment. If I dropped 2 manamorphose, it'd probably be to add a BI + Mutagenic Growth, so we're running the same amount of instants.
Grim flayer could be good, but I feel like golf is probably still just better. Might drop the elemental for it to test though.
URURxUR
UWUWxUW
I would caution cutting manamorphose down to 2. The reason the deck can run 15 lands is it runs more cantrips. Cutting ways to draw cards will make your mana problems start to pop up.
As far as cutting another Traverse? Not sure, I have been running 3 and it seems pretty good so far. There are some cool tricks with it. You can find a fetchland crack it and shock to pump death shadow. You can also find street wraith to draw a card essentially moving 3 cards out of your deck. You can find gore-clan or the elemental for certain situations or just another body. It's pretty versatile.
I also like the haster elemental for a few reasons. You can turn delirium on with him. You can trigger ferocious with him, and he also allows for hasty kills out of the blue. I look at it this way, he is at least better than top decking a steppe lynx and can potentially be cast and do 4 damage.
Few changes I made to sideboard so far is removed an ancient grudge for natural state, and debating on removing a flame slash for a dismember. This will allow for some instant speed removal and some life lose.
I was also going to say that with the deck becoming more popular people are learning how to play against it more effectively so lines of play are tighter and little luck goes a long way.
Cons:
1) The deck is slower, by a significant margin. Turn 3's are nearly non-existent while turn 4's occur but are still not common. Usually it's turn 5-6 that closes the game out. With only 3 mutagenic growths and no become immense's, your only game-ending threats are the death's shadows.
2) 15 lands can really screw you up at times. A one land hand packed full of battlerages and manamorphose's can feel really risky. Traverse helps, but delirium becomes more difficult to achieve if you can'y use the manamorphose's.
3) No way to deal with threats main deck. The deck runs 4 thought-seize, which I will touch on later, but a top decked thalia can be back breaking, especially with how land light the deck is.
Pros:
1) While the deck is technically slower, it feels SO much smoother thanks to the traverse the uvenwalds. Yeah, you are definitely not solitaring the way other decks do, but in actually games you will have an opponent that will attempt to interact with you. We all know how difficult a standard jund hand of IOK, terminate, liliana can be, significantly slowing us down barring godly topdecks, but I feel much more comfortable running this deck against jund because traverse not only improves our topdecks, but also makes it harder for jund to deal with all of our threats. Not just jund, but all decks really, and the deck is slower, but I would imagine that the win percentages on the "late game" is much higher. I felt good when running it as a 2 of in the other list that had popped up, but I feel it needs to be at least a 3 of. The versatility of this card can't really be understated, especially in this deck. Having the ability to run silver bullet main deck and sideboard cards, and have a way to consistently grab them, is HUGE. For people mehing the elemental, give it a go. Surprising your opponent with a hasted death's shadow is great. When snapcaster came into the picture, I picked up 2 playsets because I knew it was going to increase in price. When this was printed I picked up 4 playsets, and might pick up some more. I think this card has been criminally overlooked, and as WOTC continues to experiment with dual typings (Artifact creature, Enchantment Creature, Land creature, Tribal Instant), this card only gets better.
2) I really like 4 TS in the main. I said I would touch on this later, while no answer to threats in the MD can feel a little blah sitting across from a thalia, I still think it's the better choice for the deck. It shores up so many math-ups, both good and bad, and futhers the lifeloss for Death's shadow.
3) When you have 2 lands, manamorphose is amazing. We already knew running only 48 cards in the maindeck was great, running 44 is even better. "Free" cyclers are the bee's knees.
Overall I really am enjoying the manamorphose deck. I am going to start tweaking some of the varients, incorporating some of the stuff I liked and changing some of the stuff I didn't like. As someone said before, I think 1 BI is probably alright, to give at least a chance of comboing off. I don't think we need any burn in the main deck, but I might be open to either a singleton tarfire or seal of fire might be ok to enable delirium. I think the land count could be increased, but not too much. 16 is probably right. I am going to toy with manamorphose numbers, but I think they deserve some main deck inclusion considering they are a "free" cycler, just unsure of how much I want to run 4 of them in the land light deck like this.
My H/W list
I also agree this deck feels much much better against bad match ups. Jund is better and so is bant eldrazi.
My H/W list
The goal of 4c is to land death shadow as soon as possible. Your chances to win games increases dramatically. With JUL deck you can land it turn 2 pretty often. Mostly because you can tutor for it.
I think with some tweaking we can get the deck to be stable as well as fas5. I have alr3ady started playing with the numbers to get there. 1 BI is in the list now. Maybe cut the swamp got another shock or a fetch for a shock. Minor tweaks here and there. I cut a slash for dismember to help life lose and removal
Yes, do that
Also, take notes about the opponent's deck, maybe the field is changing in a way that the deck seems weaker.
I'm also taking a look at Soul Flayer, potential for 4/4 with Haste, Death touch and trample for one mana. It can be tutored and is effective as a defensive wall, or death stroke.
Two changes I'm playing around with is either an additional shockland in place of one of the 15, or maybe cutting a copy of grim lavamancer from the sb. Not sure for what yet but I don't know if two is necessary but I could be wrong.
1 Grim Flayer
4 Monastery Swiftspear
1 Soulflayer
4 Street Wraith
4 Wild Nacatl
4 Faithless Looting
4 Gitaxian Probe
2 Postmortem Lunge
3 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Become Immense
3 Mutagenic Growth
4 Temur Battle Rage
4 Mishra's Bauble
1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Stomping Ground
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Windswept Heath
2 Dismember
1 Melira, Sylvok Outcast
1 Mirran Crusader
1 Phyrexian Crusader
3 Phyrexian Unlife
2 Spellskite
2 Stony Silence
This is still a Delirium Deck and the real all-star is Traverse the Ulvenwald. Traverse allows us to tutor creatures making our match one wins faster and allowing us a diverse but intentional creature sideboard.
I have dropped manamorphose for Faithless Looting. If you have concerns about this choice you owe it to yourself to playtest it. We run into a lot of dead cards in our deck at times, and being able to draw two and chuck the useless excess, all the while fueling our delirium makes this card outright insane. Morphose felt like I slammed into a brick wall that then asked me a riddle to proceed. Looting makes you feel like your decks in your hand.
Grim Flayer Do yourself a favor, buy this card while it is eight dollars. This is a two cost 4/4 with trample and no downside. It has Haste to start putting damage downrange on your opponent bringing him within range of the kill shot of your death shadow, that he helps you draw.
OR become immense it because we can run two even with delirium, thanks Faithless Looting.
Postmortem Lunge You know what sucks worse than a lightning bolt? Summoning sickness luckily for you this cures them both simultaneously. Do yourself a favor, ever have that awkward moment when you’re at 10 life and have a death shadow in hand. That little voice nips at you "summmmonnn heeeem".. Because if you don’t you'll have to wait an entire turn to cast him right? Waiting sucks. Do this. Summon him as a 3/3 with a little sticky note that says bolt me, and then summon him back for the same cost, except with two more attack and oh yeah haste. Also Grim flayer + this. Also reckless looting + this. Opponents Thoughtsieze + this.
Soulflayer - It's a one mana 4/4 with Trample, Haste and (deathtouch because I know you won’t leave Gnarlroot be) QUIT playing the MONKEYS.
-----
It's not your typical 15 single card wide board. This is focused, simple and will win you a lot of tough matches.
Spellskite - Burn is a severe matchup. It's at two because it's often too late by the time we have the three mana to tutor then cast.
Stony Silence I see that players are being niche and have been playing these one tap single artifact destroyers that annoy affinity, well this card beats affinity, it's time tested and proven. With the amount of thinning we have running two of these is like running four.
Phyrexian Unlife this card will save your life against burn, we lose to burn hard. We share the expertise off lowering our life with them. This card is at three because it's mandatory we draw it in a burn match up and it's versatile in any match up that you find yourself taking too much damage. If you draw extra pitch it with reckless. At first glance this can be dismissed, what's 10 more life to a burn deck? What's not taken into account is how deadly we are at zero life. Its prime spell slinger hunting season then. One Mana size 13 deaths shadows clean the game up very quickly.
Mirran Crusader This card will cleave a Tarmagoyf in twain, laugh at kalitas. It gets past 99% of Azban Company while singing can’t touch this. It also has Temur Battle Rage preinstalled. Super fun.
Melira, Sylvok Outcast Tutor, smash infect even harder.
Dismember This gives you control over your life, and wipes almost ALL threats off the field in modern. I wouldn't run path of exile it puts us an entire turn behind.
Apostle's Blessing This is easily the best card in the sideboard. If you want to reach for something like grafdiggers so you can plop it on field and shield yourself with it go for it. That strategy isn’t the best with our aggressive build, this protects your kill but more importantly it gains you card advantage. Decks like Jund don't win because they aggro you better (in most cases). Their goal out the gate is every time you play two cards they want to kill them with one. This card is probably about a dollar, use it to make them waste there 50 dollar card. This requires timing, patience and practice but it will get you farther in tournament.
Phyrexian Crusader Oh boy how to explain this one. You’re going to a MTG Grand Prix. You stayed up all night practicing against the best decks in the format. Jund, Junk, NP. Gots this. round one begins and you see a shribbled old lady card on the field...you lean in to read it and is says Martyr of the Sands. Then you lose.
It's not pretty and it's embarrassing but we LOSE to soul sisters. 36 life first turn with 7/7 one cost angels with life link rain down on us and all we can do is kill ourselves to make it end faster isn’t pretty. This helps you against weird decks. MILL is a scary matchup, there are TONS of homebrews you've never seen. This can get you out off a bad situation. Coupla’ Mutagenics and a Temur will make it all go away.
Thanks and good luck!