Yea I soo wanted acces to a sweeper, and its not like we are committing any 1 n 2 drops. The problem with relic is that is hurts our own recursion, Tormod's Crypt can be fetched with tolaria and reused with Sun Titan, but is pretty narrow otherwise. Most of the format has some yard action however. Also wanted to ask, you dont like the unburial rites package even in the board? I guess that plan doesn't help much with any of the bad match ups. Ill start playing with the board more soon after I am more familiar with the deck, but I dont think spreading seas is what you want for tron, I think a lot run O stone now.
Yea I soo wanted acces to a sweeper, and its not like we are committing any 1 n 2 drops. The problem with relic is that is hurts our own recursion, Tormod's Crypt can be fetched with tolaria and reused with Sun Titan, but is pretty narrow otherwise. Most of the format has some yard action however. Also wanted to ask, you dont like the unburial rites package even in the board? I guess that plan doesn't help much with any of the bad match ups. Ill start playing with the board more soon after I am more familiar with the deck, but I dont think spreading seas is what you want for tron, I think a lot run O stone now.
Yeah, I've found that too, main problem is i'm not huge on playing Bribery vs. RG tron since it doesn't solve the Karn problem. I actually just playtested a game vs. RG tron (courtesy of a fellow MTGS player) and lost g1, then won g2 and g3.
When playing vs. tron, I mainly try to hit them a few times with ghost quarter / land destruction effects, until I can get to 6 mana and play Sun Titan to start recurring ghost quarter to nuke their manabase.
I'm thinking about instead of playing spreading seas, to simply add 2 more ghost quarters and 1-2 crucible of worlds in the board to deal with their lands, but who knows.
Life from the Loam is going in for sure, also amazing with gifts because you are guaranteed to draw it! That was one of the cards I was exited to use in green. Oracle of Mul Daya or Azusa could also be nice to get ahead on lands. A gifts pile of those two, Loam and G quarter would be brutal! They probably aren't playing the pyroclams post board any how.
Life from the Loam is going in for sure, also amazing with gifts because you are guaranteed to draw it! That was one of the cards I was exited to use in green. Oracle of Mul Daya or Azusa could also be nice to get ahead on lands. A gifts pile of those two, Loam and G quarter would be brutal! They probably aren't playing the pyroclams post board any how.
Loam is awesome. And given the nature of the deck, it would seem to work well with everything. That being said, I wouldn't play it maindeck, since it has very little application outside busting tron lands with ghost quarter.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find me online - I'm on Cockatrice * Tag - Badd B - Or on MTGO - Tag - Cbus05
Where to start... I think you're falling into the typical Gifts Ungiven trap of trying to make Gifts into a 4 mana tutor instead of a card advantage engine. You should be able to use it as a pseudo tutor, but you don't need to be playing bad cards like Noxious revival, merchant scroll, and skimping on the best cards in your deck like Path to Exile and Cryptic command. The goyfs are no doubt good beaters, but they're also just making your opponent's removal live against you. If you're playing control, you really don't want an opponent's removal to be relevant against you. I like playing with Eternal witness not only because it's incredible with gifts, but it trades +1 card advantage over your opponent every time it kills a creature it blocks, or every time it eats removal. After it's killed, you then get to use it again from the graveyard via Sun Titan or Reveillark.
I think when you build a gifts ungiven deck as a control deck, you should probably ask yourself if you would consider playing "x" card in your deck if you weren't playing Gifts. If you wouldn't ever play that card without having access to Gifts, it's probably not worth it to play even with Gifts.
Get rid of the Merchant scrolls. They're not good in modern without any combo pieces or ancestral recalls to search for. They just make your deck slower and clunkier overall. If you want to play a single merchant scroll, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but I certainly wouldn't play 4.
Add more removal spells. There are a lot of efficient and powerful creatures in modern. I wouldn't play less than 7-8 maindeck removal spells.
Get rid of Iona & Unburial rites. Iona is a dead draw as is rites, and you should have more than enough counters and removal to deal with the combo decks in modern. You'll lose more often to having a rites or Iona in your hand and nothing to do with them than you'll lose to not being able to put an Iona into play on turn 5. Against a lot of decks, Iona won't even do much of anything on turn 5.
Add at least 1x Eternal Witness. It's the card that makes this deck work. I would also cut noxious revival. What bullets do you need that bad that justify playing a card that's pretty terrible? Just diversify your spells and threats, add in a snapcaster mage + eternal witness, and you should be golden. I also would cut Traumatic Visions. It's not good, even if you can cycle it, you should play more Cryptics as well.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find me online - I'm on Cockatrice * Tag - Badd B - Or on MTGO - Tag - Cbus05
Out of the question? Not really. The first draft of this deck actually had a singleton Venser, The Sojourner and singleton Time Warp in an attempt to set up an infinite turn lock with Eternal Witness. At the time, the infinite turn lock was actually a fairly useful way to beat decks like 12post, since you would otherwise have a difficult time dealing with their late-game power.
That being said, I eventually found Venser win-more, and was only good when I had a witness in play, despite the fact that this deck works best when Witnesses end up in your graveyard due to chump blocking, eating removal, or simply getting sent to the yard from gifts. I found the late-game eternal command soft lock was more than enough of a lock to get by most decks.
Sorry for the double post, but I definitely feel more that this is the way to take control for now. With abrupt decay flying around, I feel like hiding behind Vedalken Shackles won't be as reliable as it used to be.
The maindeck Runed halo also is a good answer to any valakut deck that may pop up as well. I think the only thing I want to work on in here is the manabase a bit more.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find me online - I'm on Cockatrice * Tag - Badd B - Or on MTGO - Tag - Cbus05
But who is gona play decay, Jund? They already had pulse, so dont see much change in that regard. I think the Ancient grudes for affinity in all the SBs are more of a problem. If Valakut and Tron ends up pushing out agro, this deck could certainly get better, esp with MD loam lock.
Some acceleration might be good but poor Noble is probably gona get burnt on the spot, thats what the Aether Vials are for in the Japanese version, basically accel. Being able to get the soft lock up t4 is pretty sweet. Someone posted a deck with Sakura tribe elder in it for BUG gifts and it piqued my interest. Could be an interesting card that can block, ramp or even attack!
I don't really think you want to be messing around with hierarch. This deck does have a higher curve than some (3x gifts, 3x Cryptic) but it also has a lot of highly efficient disruption that allows you to slow the game down until you get to the point of being able to win off the back of Gifts Ungiven. You need to be patient with this deck, it's not particularly fast, and it's very grindy, but it works really well at slowly putting a deathgrip on your opponent. Just slow the game down, hit your land drops until you can resolve Gifts for the best 4 cards you can use against your opponent, then start buying stuff back with witness and snapcaster. I will say, this deck benefits you a lot more the more you know the meta.
I wouldn't recommend it to a newcomer to the modern format since it's not very straightforward, isn't all that proactive, and has a lot of small but powerful synergies that can be difficult to spot. For example, I've spent a lot of games dropping eternal witness, chump blocking a goyf, then repealing my own witness for 4 mana to draw a card, and buy back witness again to grab a previously used path to exile, bant charm, or cryptic command. Same is true for Snapcaster mage, where it's a perfectly reasonable play to snap it in eot, target repeal, repeal itself (to draw a card) and then play your turn. Another powerful but subtle play is to be liberal in your use of phantasmal image. I frequently play image copying something as minor as Delver of Secrets, only to use it as a chump blocker. When the image dies, you can cast Eternal witness the following turn, then the turn after that cast phantasmal image targeting your own Eternal Witness, effectively chaining buybacks at a very low cost.
I will say, I'm considering maindecking porphyry nodes in here since it plays incredibly well with everything in here, it answers Geist really well, and is highly efficient (I've used it maindeck before too, and I thought at the time it couldn't hit hexproof creatures).
I'll definitely be reworking the sideboard in here as well to have better game against Valakut strategies.
I have some interest in this deck, but I'm finding it very difficult to play through the first 3-4 turns and deciding which hands to keep and to mull...
Do you have any video playing this, or can you give some tips on how to approach early game and mullig decisions?
thank you !
Basically, you want at least 2 mana, and ideally a removal spell & permission spell. On the draw I've gotten away with keeping a 1 land hand, but that's risky, and you only consider that if you have serum visions in your opening hand. As with anything, mulling and keeping is pretty fluent, and changes quite a bit depending on your matchup. Against most of the format, you'll want removal in your opener, but if you don't have any and do have chump blockers, you can hold off behind some permission until you can find a path, bant charm, or set up your shackles.
What counterspell would you consider playing over Mana Leak? The fact that Path to Exile has anti synergy with it makes me kind of shirk away from Leak and Rune Snag.
I may be wrong though, considering leak is usually used in the first few turns to counter big/priority spells, and you probably won't be using Path until after that...
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
It's flavor-tastic
Sig made by Tiiratore. PM him if you want one.
Disappointing avatar made by Mirror Entity at Disappointing Signets Inc.
My Decks:
Modern:
(online)Enduring Ideal
(online)BUG
(paper)Mono White Control
Standard:
(paper) Whatever I can throw together
(online) UWR Control
What counterspell would you consider playing over Mana Leak? The fact that Path to Exile has anti synergy with it makes me kind of shirk away from Leak and Rune Snag.
I may be wrong though, considering leak is usually used in the first few turns to counter big/priority spells, and you probably won't be using Path until after that...
It's funny, because every time I would think there is something I can't leak due to too many paths, I leak something. But as you said, it's mostly for early and mid-game protection until you can get cryptic command online. I had some success running Rune Snag in it's place, but I found it hard to tell which I liked more.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Find me online - I'm on Cockatrice * Tag - Badd B - Or on MTGO - Tag - Cbus05
Here is my riff on your deck, shaving off some green for beter mana and adding Loam + Thirst engine as well. I cant afford Vendilian or more Breeding pools atm, is part of my reason for trying this.
The Trink pack with Needle Relic may not be needed but I REALY like being able to gifts for loam + Academy Ruins + Shakels/ Mortarpod Combo or EE or Batterskull for some less vulnerable inevitability. LLark could go at this point for another counter or removal.
Looks pretty cool, you definitely want the sun Titan though, and probably don't need the day with all the explosives and verdict. Gifts for three wraths is probablly only good vs pod and you are better of with unburial plus Elesh Norn to trump swarm agro.
I ran this deck over the weekend at a GPT. It plays fairly well against the field. i did have some issues against Liliana of the Veil, burn and eggs.
I have been trying to add farseek and gitaxian probe. The farseek works well with the shock lands and speeds things up. It keeps you even and maybe a step ahead in land...you are adding dual land where your opponent is pulling a basic from paths.
Liliana of the Veil hitting the table was basically an autoloss. She cost 4 mana to bounce with repeal or cryptic command. She only cost 3 to cast so she goes down a turn before she can be bounced. Unless you are sitting on a mana leak with the open mana seems to be the only option. With duress effects it is unlikely you will have a counter though.
Agro matchups were fairly easy. Delver with saints were tough but winnable with a repeating cryptic command and another beater...titan in my case. Soul sisters was pretty easy.
It does seem like you need to win game 1. You are going to take most games to the time limit. I'd like to run this at GP Chicago but may need to make some tweeks. I'd like to add farseek to speed the timer up. Any advise would be great.
Far seek is just a bit underpowered for this deck. I played around with tribe elder and he wasnt bad. Death rite shaman has been pretty sweet in the 4cc deck I'm trying now. This bant build is definitely fun and powerful but just always felt a bit to slow and soft in too many spots.
I have been playing this deck quite a bit in the past few weeks. Since it is a bit late to change decks this close to Chicago GP this is the one I am running. I was hoping to get the match-up rundown. How do we play certain matchups with this deck?
I have had good luck playing the control game vs tokens, affinity and other agro. I'm still having issues with jund. I have had limited success playing the control or the beatdown roles. This seems to be a tough matchup from what I have seen. Lilliana still rips this deck.
I played a couple of spliter twins last night. I ended up playing the beatdown and lost in both matches. I know we should play the control role against most decks especially this one but had no counters in the opening 7 so I went beatdown...prolly should have mullied.
It seems tron we have to play the beatdown to be viable.
Any thoughts would be great. This weekend is the big show in Chicago...so any help/suggestions would be appriciated.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Yeah, I've found that too, main problem is i'm not huge on playing Bribery vs. RG tron since it doesn't solve the Karn problem. I actually just playtested a game vs. RG tron (courtesy of a fellow MTGS player) and lost g1, then won g2 and g3.
When playing vs. tron, I mainly try to hit them a few times with ghost quarter / land destruction effects, until I can get to 6 mana and play Sun Titan to start recurring ghost quarter to nuke their manabase.
I'm thinking about instead of playing spreading seas, to simply add 2 more ghost quarters and 1-2 crucible of worlds in the board to deal with their lands, but who knows.
Loam is awesome. And given the nature of the deck, it would seem to work well with everything. That being said, I wouldn't play it maindeck, since it has very little application outside busting tron lands with ghost quarter.
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Scalding Tarn
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Breeding Pool
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Temple Garden
1 Watery Grave
1 Island
1 Snow-Covered Island
1 Forest
1 Plains
1 Samp
1 Seaside Citadel
1 Mystic Gate
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Stirring Wildwood
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Tolaria West
1 Academy Ruins
1 Buried Ruin
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Tarmogoyf
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Bottle Gnomes
Engine (8):
4 Merchant Scroll
3 Gifts Ungiven
1 Thirst for Knowledge
Counters/Removal (15):
4 Remand
3 Spell Snare
1 Pact of Negation
1 Traumatic Visions
1 Cryptic Command
1 Bant Charm
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Path to Exile
2 Engineered Explosives
Bullets (5):
1 Evacuation
1 Ghostly Prision
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Noxious Revival
1 Unburial Rites
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Dispel
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Day of Judgment
1 Wrath of God
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Teferi, Mage of Zhalfir
1 Gaea's Blessing
1 Nature's Claim
Where to start... I think you're falling into the typical Gifts Ungiven trap of trying to make Gifts into a 4 mana tutor instead of a card advantage engine. You should be able to use it as a pseudo tutor, but you don't need to be playing bad cards like Noxious revival, merchant scroll, and skimping on the best cards in your deck like Path to Exile and Cryptic command. The goyfs are no doubt good beaters, but they're also just making your opponent's removal live against you. If you're playing control, you really don't want an opponent's removal to be relevant against you. I like playing with Eternal witness not only because it's incredible with gifts, but it trades +1 card advantage over your opponent every time it kills a creature it blocks, or every time it eats removal. After it's killed, you then get to use it again from the graveyard via Sun Titan or Reveillark.
I think when you build a gifts ungiven deck as a control deck, you should probably ask yourself if you would consider playing "x" card in your deck if you weren't playing Gifts. If you wouldn't ever play that card without having access to Gifts, it's probably not worth it to play even with Gifts.
Get rid of the Merchant scrolls. They're not good in modern without any combo pieces or ancestral recalls to search for. They just make your deck slower and clunkier overall. If you want to play a single merchant scroll, that wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, but I certainly wouldn't play 4.
Add more removal spells. There are a lot of efficient and powerful creatures in modern. I wouldn't play less than 7-8 maindeck removal spells.
Get rid of Iona & Unburial rites. Iona is a dead draw as is rites, and you should have more than enough counters and removal to deal with the combo decks in modern. You'll lose more often to having a rites or Iona in your hand and nothing to do with them than you'll lose to not being able to put an Iona into play on turn 5. Against a lot of decks, Iona won't even do much of anything on turn 5.
Add at least 1x Eternal Witness. It's the card that makes this deck work. I would also cut noxious revival. What bullets do you need that bad that justify playing a card that's pretty terrible? Just diversify your spells and threats, add in a snapcaster mage + eternal witness, and you should be golden. I also would cut Traumatic Visions. It's not good, even if you can cycle it, you should play more Cryptics as well.
Modern:
(online)Enduring Ideal
(online)BUG
(paper)Mono White Control
Standard:
(paper) Whatever I can throw together
(online) UWR Control
Legacy:
(paper)The Gate
(paper)Dream Halls
Out of the question? Not really. The first draft of this deck actually had a singleton Venser, The Sojourner and singleton Time Warp in an attempt to set up an infinite turn lock with Eternal Witness. At the time, the infinite turn lock was actually a fairly useful way to beat decks like 12post, since you would otherwise have a difficult time dealing with their late-game power.
That being said, I eventually found Venser win-more, and was only good when I had a witness in play, despite the fact that this deck works best when Witnesses end up in your graveyard due to chump blocking, eating removal, or simply getting sent to the yard from gifts. I found the late-game eternal command soft lock was more than enough of a lock to get by most decks.
The maindeck Runed halo also is a good answer to any valakut deck that may pop up as well. I think the only thing I want to work on in here is the manabase a bit more.
I wouldn't recommend it to a newcomer to the modern format since it's not very straightforward, isn't all that proactive, and has a lot of small but powerful synergies that can be difficult to spot. For example, I've spent a lot of games dropping eternal witness, chump blocking a goyf, then repealing my own witness for 4 mana to draw a card, and buy back witness again to grab a previously used path to exile, bant charm, or cryptic command. Same is true for Snapcaster mage, where it's a perfectly reasonable play to snap it in eot, target repeal, repeal itself (to draw a card) and then play your turn. Another powerful but subtle play is to be liberal in your use of phantasmal image. I frequently play image copying something as minor as Delver of Secrets, only to use it as a chump blocker. When the image dies, you can cast Eternal witness the following turn, then the turn after that cast phantasmal image targeting your own Eternal Witness, effectively chaining buybacks at a very low cost.
I will say, I'm considering maindecking porphyry nodes in here since it plays incredibly well with everything in here, it answers Geist really well, and is highly efficient (I've used it maindeck before too, and I thought at the time it couldn't hit hexproof creatures).
I'll definitely be reworking the sideboard in here as well to have better game against Valakut strategies.
Basically, you want at least 2 mana, and ideally a removal spell & permission spell. On the draw I've gotten away with keeping a 1 land hand, but that's risky, and you only consider that if you have serum visions in your opening hand. As with anything, mulling and keeping is pretty fluent, and changes quite a bit depending on your matchup. Against most of the format, you'll want removal in your opener, but if you don't have any and do have chump blockers, you can hold off behind some permission until you can find a path, bant charm, or set up your shackles.
I may be wrong though, considering leak is usually used in the first few turns to counter big/priority spells, and you probably won't be using Path until after that...
Modern:
(online)Enduring Ideal
(online)BUG
(paper)Mono White Control
Standard:
(paper) Whatever I can throw together
(online) UWR Control
Legacy:
(paper)The Gate
(paper)Dream Halls
It's funny, because every time I would think there is something I can't leak due to too many paths, I leak something. But as you said, it's mostly for early and mid-game protection until you can get cryptic command online. I had some success running Rune Snag in it's place, but I found it hard to tell which I liked more.
1x Vedalken Shackles
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Pithing Needle
1x Relic of Progenitus
1x Mortar Pod
1x Batterskull
1x Runed Halo
2x Porphyry Nodes
2x Snapcaster Mage
2x Eternal Witness
1x Sun Titan
1x Reveillark
1x Phantasmal Image
1 Trinket Mage
Instants / Sorceries
1x Life from the Loam
3x Thirst for Knowledge
1x Bant Charm
3x Path to Exile
2x Spell Snare
3x Mana Leak
2x Cryptic Command
3x Gifts Ungiven
The Trink pack with Needle Relic may not be needed but I REALY like being able to gifts for loam + Academy Ruins + Shakels/ Mortarpod Combo or EE or Batterskull for some less vulnerable inevitability. LLark could go at this point for another counter or removal.
I have been trying to add farseek and gitaxian probe. The farseek works well with the shock lands and speeds things up. It keeps you even and maybe a step ahead in land...you are adding dual land where your opponent is pulling a basic from paths.
Liliana of the Veil hitting the table was basically an autoloss. She cost 4 mana to bounce with repeal or cryptic command. She only cost 3 to cast so she goes down a turn before she can be bounced. Unless you are sitting on a mana leak with the open mana seems to be the only option. With duress effects it is unlikely you will have a counter though.
Agro matchups were fairly easy. Delver with saints were tough but winnable with a repeating cryptic command and another beater...titan in my case. Soul sisters was pretty easy.
It does seem like you need to win game 1. You are going to take most games to the time limit. I'd like to run this at GP Chicago but may need to make some tweeks. I'd like to add farseek to speed the timer up. Any advise would be great.
I have had good luck playing the control game vs tokens, affinity and other agro. I'm still having issues with jund. I have had limited success playing the control or the beatdown roles. This seems to be a tough matchup from what I have seen. Lilliana still rips this deck.
I played a couple of spliter twins last night. I ended up playing the beatdown and lost in both matches. I know we should play the control role against most decks especially this one but had no counters in the opening 7 so I went beatdown...prolly should have mullied.
It seems tron we have to play the beatdown to be viable.
Any thoughts would be great. This weekend is the big show in Chicago...so any help/suggestions would be appriciated.