Has anyone else been watching the new set spoiler recently? There's a new interesting brew for company decks that may turn that match-up worse.
Abzan company now has a way to make infinite mana which we can't interact with at all in the form of Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies.
Is there any tech for this or is it just straight up unwinnable?
Previous iterations of coco could be kept in check with Grafdigger's cage even if they have the combo but this isn't the case anymore.
Has anyone else been watching the new set spoiler recently? There's a new interesting brew for company decks that may turn that match-up worse.
Abzan company now has a way to make infinite mana which we can't interact with at all in the form of Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies.
Is there any tech for this or is it just straight up unwinnable?
Previous iterations of coco could be kept in check with Grafdigger's cage even if they have the combo but this isn't the case anymore.
Any tech for this? Jut kill the creatures. Thats the whole point of playing Abzan.
"The worst part isn't the pain, or the smell, or even the fear of death. It's hearing the clatter of bone on stone and knowing the bones are yours."BRG
for merfolk, discard is very important to take their Spreading Seas and Silvergill Adept. This are their CA spells which eventually would allow them to draw into more gas if you let them have it. We can deal with the first wave of aggression normally, but freshly drawn lords due to extra cards can be difficult to beat. Also, really play around Spreading Seas by not cracking your fetches unless you have to.
For sideboarding obviously don't board in artifact hate, as the merfolk player should board out their Aether Vial if the merfolk player is experienced. If they don't board it out, let them happily topdeck their Vials in a topdeck war and feel good. But don't bring in hate for it, we have decay which can potentially hit it and this is enough.
Obviously sweeper are very good. And I think LoTV is also great. Collective Brutality is also very good, it can kill Master and potentially every unbuffed creature except Mutavault.
When discarding turn 1 on the play, you need to have a closer look at their hands and see if they keep a greedy hand with a lot of UU costing creatures and no double blue for casting them only having Vial in hand. You could potentially screw them by taking Vial and they can't really cast merfolks and hold up other stuff [Snag, Pierce, Dismember...) at the same time.
Thanks for that. One of my testing group runs fish and he has agreed to have a full night testing it on Tuesday so I will report back once Finished. Is there any space for another damnation in the board instead of a zealous persecution? I felt like I wanted to side out goys in the matchup as they always seemed to have relic and when thinking about it I wondered if double damnation would be viable if I board out goys
I'd say that's a good swap without knowing your sideboard.
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Decks I play:
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
Thanks for that. One of my testing group runs fish and he has agreed to have a full night testing it on Tuesday so I will report back once Finished. Is there any space for another damnation in the board instead of a zealous persecution? I felt like I wanted to side out goys in the matchup as they always seemed to have relic and when thinking about it I wondered if double damnation would be viable if I board out goys
I never sided out goyf ever against any opponent or deck and I really can't understand why some people do this. It gets me everytime I read about someone siding out goyfs honestly. So, please just no. Don't do this.
Yeah you can swap Zealous for a second Damnation for sure. Board them both in vs. Merfolk. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me if I trade a goyf and a damnation with a big board of merfolks, seems alright to me and doesn't make goyf worse in any way or even justify siding him out.
Bone picker doesn't really fit in BGX, especially as a two of, this is a really mediocre topdeck in the late/mid game and not to mention it's mediocre in a lot of matchups(Ad Naus,Tron,Scapeshift,Control).
Yeah it's like Delver and delver is a tempo play. To play him on turn two your opponent has to have a creature in play and you have to kill it somehow. BGX shouldn't rely on that niche synergy because it's a midrange deck. Not to mention you have to jump through so many hoops to get him in play. This just doesn't fit.
I agree with tinrockymaces. Bone Picker is a tempo card which we don't need/want. And not to forget, it can't come down on turn 1, which is way worse than delver, and on turn 2 I want my Goyf/Bob/Flayer on the battlefield ideally.
I agree with tinrockymaces. Bone Picker is a tempo card which we don't need/want. And not to forget, it can't come down on turn 1, which is way worse than delver, and on turn 2 I want my Goyf/Bob/Flayer on the battlefield ideally.
Even if I could play it turn one, I'd rather play a turn 1 discard spell. The card is simply just not good in this format.
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Decks I play:
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
So over the last few months, Fulminator Mage has been really disappointing for me. Has anyone recently tested Gaddock Teeg instead of him?
Teek and Stony Silence seem to be a better disruption against Tron than Fulminator Mage imo. He seems to be decent against Scapeshift, Ad Naus and Gifts too. Thoughts?
I have recently been convinced by some of the guys on here that fulminater mage is the way forward and after testing against tron and scapeshift it is great but underwhelming in other matchups. Teeg is only a temporary answer and will only slow them down. With Mage + extraction you can literally take them off tron for the whole game giving you time to find answers to there big threats
The thing is that its highly unlikely to get both cards at the same time. And also, there needs to be only one piece of the targeted tronland on the bf and also no relic in play from the tron player. I actually managed to pull the combo off exactly once, no more. The odds are really against us concerning this.
I think Fulminator is the way to go but I am highly unhappy with it against every deck. And thats the sadness about Fulminator.
So, I played this last night based off of Willy Edel's recent article.
Some pros and cons based off of only 4 rounds.
-Delirium is way easy to turn on.
-Having "more" tarmogoyfs through traverse is great.
-Small toolbox from the sideboard is amazing.
-Sometimes bauble is awkward and traverse is too slow.
-Land light hands are very real and sometimes you might not get there and get stuck on lands and stumble and it can hurt a lot.
I'm gonna keep messing with this, I think there's something here for sure.
Results:
Sultai Delirium 1-2
-Somehow got paired up against a pseudo mirror, he just went bigger and had a better toolbox I suppose. He had tracker, courser, shriekmaw, Ishkana, and grave titan in his main deck. Along with serum visions and Jace, VP to smooth draws. It was actually pretty sweet.
He beat me game 1 in the top deck war, top decking traverse for grave titan. Game 2 I had 2 Bobs and a lot of lingering souls and Vault, he couldnt find answers for anything. Game 3 he top decks liliana on a clear board and I couldnt find an answer.
RW Burn: 2-0
Game 1: on the play, baubled him for info, saw sacred foundry left up blooming marsh for fatal push. Next turn inquisition and traverse for rhino. Land liliana into rhino and thats the game pretty much.
Game 2 he mulls to 5 and it's a pretty safe game for me.
Lantern Control 2-1
Game 1 he locks it up pretty fast and mechanized productions for the win.
Game 2 I turn 3 traverse for kataki and grim flayer for pressure.
Game 3 basically goes the same way. I use liliana the laat hope to loop reclamation sage every other turn while goyf keeps a clock
Affinity 2-0
Game 1 I keep a hand of all removal. Top deck flayer and lili last hope. And he cant rebuild fast enough.
Game 2 I stumble on 1 land (double bauble hand and 2 fatal push) he gets me to 1 life and I turn the corner eventually finding lands for lingering souls and traverse for Vault gaining too much life.
I have recently been convinced by some of the guys on here that fulminater mage is the way forward and after testing against tron and scapeshift it is great but underwhelming in other matchups. Teeg is only a temporary answer and will only slow them down. With Mage + extraction you can literally take them off tron for the whole game giving you time to find answers to there big threats
We want to play tempo against Tron, not the long game by keeping them off Tron and finding answers to their threats. Fulminator Mage is useful against any deck that runs manlands.
Duress, Stony Silence, and Aven Mindcensor are also good against Tron.
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Modern
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
I've only played the matchup a few times, but I really like LOTV against storm. Destroying their hand seems really important, maybe it's too slow. But I feel like they cant win from a top deck war.
I've only played the matchup a few times, but I really like LOTV against storm. Destroying their hand seems really important, maybe it's too slow. But I feel like they cant win from a top deck war.
Yeah, of course, that why Storm is a great matchups for GBx usually. Rip their hand apart and enjoy your win.
@magicmurph: Am happy that you did great. I know this sounds discouraging (not my purpose), but those matchups you described all are quite favoured for Junk (except Affinity can sometimes be close, depending on presence of Etched Champion). For a bigger event I would not expect to have good matchups like this all the time. Just keep this in mind. Otherwise wish you the best of luck for the event!
Concerning control matchups, which do you mean exactly? Jeskai Saheeli and Grixis Control basically?
If yes, then I would definitely cut Decays and Pushes against Grixis and Pushes against Jeskai. Bring in additional discard and hard to deal with threats like Gideon. Against Grixis you want GY hate (but Tilsen runs 2 Spellbombs main anyway so thats great)
So, I played this last night based off of Willy Edel's recent article.
Some pros and cons based off of only 4 rounds.
-Delirium is way easy to turn on.
-Having "more" tarmogoyfs through traverse is great.
-Small toolbox from the sideboard is amazing.
-Sometimes bauble is awkward and traverse is too slow.
-Land light hands are very real and sometimes you might not get there and get stuck on lands and stumble and it can hurt a lot.
I'm gonna keep messing with this, I think there's something here for sure.
Not that I find anything particularly wrong with the current state of Abzan, but I do want to test this version also. Just fishing hands, it feels more lean and dense than traditional Abzan (due to -3 lands / Heirarchs). It does make us somewhat more reliant on the GY, but we're already doing that so why not push it even further?
Willy's reasonings in the article are decent, and if you check MTGO, there have been several 5-0's with variants of this list already. The few things I am not sold on are Shriekmaw in the main (maybe it's just my expected metagame - I don't think he will be that good there) and wanting a Pulse MB (which you have already done).
I am particularly impressed by the 1 MB Bojuka Bog, which would be GREAT right now, as well as the flexibility of using a low-to-the-ground toolbox that can be customized to beat virtually any metagame.
no problems at all @flyingdelver.
it was a refreshing change to play some decks im favoured against after the decks I came up against in our gauntlet last week were Merfolk, Elves & Grixis Control. needless to say it was a tough and almost winless week.
I never know what to expect with the UK meta, in the bigger modern events I play there are always a lot of affinity & creatures heavy decks. with the modern masters release I expect more jund.
I'm worried about:
Grixis Control
Jeskai Nahiri
Moon Prison
IW control
To note, all those matchups are unfavoured you are worried about, so quite rightly you are worried. As I stated in the previous post, I would cut Decays vs Grixis, Jeskai and UW, as well as some Fatal Pushes. I think there is an argument for cutting Rhino as its clunky af and would likely get countered. But IDK about that. Specifically for Grixis GY hate is really powerful which you should bring in.
For Moon, leave in decay for obvious reasons. This is surely almost unbeatable, but I guess you can cut Rhino and Fatal Push for some Surgicals/extra discard.
Willy's reasonings in the article are decent, and if you check MTGO, there have been several 5-0's with variants of this list already. The few things I am not sold on are Shriekmaw in the main (maybe it's just my expected metagame - I don't think he will be that good there) and wanting a Pulse MB (which you have already done).
Shriekmaw is a good choice in a delirium build I think. Just think about it, you got a tutorable removal there. I think this is valuable enough. It is a shame that it doesn't hit DS though.
I am also interested in testing this list, always respect the GBx godfather Edel for articles/content like this, in fact, I am going to try it this weeks FNM.
Abzan company now has a way to make infinite mana which we can't interact with at all in the form of Devoted Druid and Vizier of Remedies.
Is there any tech for this or is it just straight up unwinnable?
Previous iterations of coco could be kept in check with Grafdigger's cage even if they have the combo but this isn't the case anymore.
Any tech for this? Jut kill the creatures. Thats the whole point of playing Abzan.
We have plenty of ways to deal with the rack in the form of Thoughtseize/IoK/Abrupt Decay/Maelstrom Pulse.
This MU seems even G1, G2 is even more in our favor however after sideboard.
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
For sideboarding obviously don't board in artifact hate, as the merfolk player should board out their Aether Vial if the merfolk player is experienced. If they don't board it out, let them happily topdeck their Vials in a topdeck war and feel good. But don't bring in hate for it, we have decay which can potentially hit it and this is enough.
Obviously sweeper are very good. And I think LoTV is also great. Collective Brutality is also very good, it can kill Master and potentially every unbuffed creature except Mutavault.
When discarding turn 1 on the play, you need to have a closer look at their hands and see if they keep a greedy hand with a lot of UU costing creatures and no double blue for casting them only having Vial in hand. You could potentially screw them by taking Vial and they can't really cast merfolks and hold up other stuff [Snag, Pierce, Dismember...) at the same time.
I'd say that's a good swap without knowing your sideboard.
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
I never sided out goyf ever against any opponent or deck and I really can't understand why some people do this. It gets me everytime I read about someone siding out goyfs honestly. So, please just no. Don't do this.
Yeah you can swap Zealous for a second Damnation for sure. Board them both in vs. Merfolk. Honestly, it doesn't matter to me if I trade a goyf and a damnation with a big board of merfolks, seems alright to me and doesn't make goyf worse in any way or even justify siding him out.
Yeah it's like Delver and delver is a tempo play. To play him on turn two your opponent has to have a creature in play and you have to kill it somehow. BGX shouldn't rely on that niche synergy because it's a midrange deck. Not to mention you have to jump through so many hoops to get him in play. This just doesn't fit.
Either of those seem good.
Even if I could play it turn one, I'd rather play a turn 1 discard spell. The card is simply just not good in this format.
Modern:
BR Control
Grixis Bloo
EDH:
Food Chain Prossh
Land Wipe Maelstrom Wanderer
Selvala, Hearth of the Wilds Eldrazi
Teek and Stony Silence seem to be a better disruption against Tron than Fulminator Mage imo. He seems to be decent against Scapeshift, Ad Naus and Gifts too. Thoughts?
The thing is that its highly unlikely to get both cards at the same time. And also, there needs to be only one piece of the targeted tronland on the bf and also no relic in play from the tron player. I actually managed to pull the combo off exactly once, no more. The odds are really against us concerning this.
I think Fulminator is the way to go but I am highly unhappy with it against every deck. And thats the sadness about Fulminator.
2 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
1 Shambling Vent
1 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
Creatures
1 Scavenging Ooze
3 Grim Flayer
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Dark Confidant
1 Siege Rhino
4 Mishra's Bauble
3 Path to Exile
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
2 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Path to Exile
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Blessed Alliance
1 Kataki, War's Wage
1 Collective Brutality
1 Lingering Souls
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 Damnation
So, I played this last night based off of Willy Edel's recent article.
Some pros and cons based off of only 4 rounds.
-Delirium is way easy to turn on.
-Having "more" tarmogoyfs through traverse is great.
-Small toolbox from the sideboard is amazing.
-Sometimes bauble is awkward and traverse is too slow.
-Land light hands are very real and sometimes you might not get there and get stuck on lands and stumble and it can hurt a lot.
I'm gonna keep messing with this, I think there's something here for sure.
Results:
Sultai Delirium 1-2
-Somehow got paired up against a pseudo mirror, he just went bigger and had a better toolbox I suppose. He had tracker, courser, shriekmaw, Ishkana, and grave titan in his main deck. Along with serum visions and Jace, VP to smooth draws. It was actually pretty sweet.
He beat me game 1 in the top deck war, top decking traverse for grave titan. Game 2 I had 2 Bobs and a lot of lingering souls and Vault, he couldnt find answers for anything. Game 3 he top decks liliana on a clear board and I couldnt find an answer.
RW Burn: 2-0
Game 1: on the play, baubled him for info, saw sacred foundry left up blooming marsh for fatal push. Next turn inquisition and traverse for rhino. Land liliana into rhino and thats the game pretty much.
Game 2 he mulls to 5 and it's a pretty safe game for me.
Lantern Control 2-1
Game 1 he locks it up pretty fast and mechanized productions for the win.
Game 2 I turn 3 traverse for kataki and grim flayer for pressure.
Game 3 basically goes the same way. I use liliana the laat hope to loop reclamation sage every other turn while goyf keeps a clock
Affinity 2-0
Game 1 I keep a hand of all removal. Top deck flayer and lili last hope. And he cant rebuild fast enough.
Game 2 I stumble on 1 land (double bauble hand and 2 fatal push) he gets me to 1 life and I turn the corner eventually finding lands for lingering souls and traverse for Vault gaining too much life.
We want to play tempo against Tron, not the long game by keeping them off Tron and finding answers to their threats. Fulminator Mage is useful against any deck that runs manlands.
Duress, Stony Silence, and Aven Mindcensor are also good against Tron.
JundBGR
RW Blood MoonRW
Pauper
Delver U
Elves G
Control B
Commander
Edgar Markov BRW
Captain Sisay GW
Niv-Mizzet, Parun UR
Tymna and Ravos WB
Yeah, of course, that why Storm is a great matchups for GBx usually. Rip their hand apart and enjoy your win.
@magicmurph: Am happy that you did great. I know this sounds discouraging (not my purpose), but those matchups you described all are quite favoured for Junk (except Affinity can sometimes be close, depending on presence of Etched Champion). For a bigger event I would not expect to have good matchups like this all the time. Just keep this in mind. Otherwise wish you the best of luck for the event!
Concerning control matchups, which do you mean exactly? Jeskai Saheeli and Grixis Control basically?
If yes, then I would definitely cut Decays and Pushes against Grixis and Pushes against Jeskai. Bring in additional discard and hard to deal with threats like Gideon. Against Grixis you want GY hate (but Tilsen runs 2 Spellbombs main anyway so thats great)
Not that I find anything particularly wrong with the current state of Abzan, but I do want to test this version also. Just fishing hands, it feels more lean and dense than traditional Abzan (due to -3 lands / Heirarchs). It does make us somewhat more reliant on the GY, but we're already doing that so why not push it even further?
Willy's reasonings in the article are decent, and if you check MTGO, there have been several 5-0's with variants of this list already. The few things I am not sold on are Shriekmaw in the main (maybe it's just my expected metagame - I don't think he will be that good there) and wanting a Pulse MB (which you have already done).
I am particularly impressed by the 1 MB Bojuka Bog, which would be GREAT right now, as well as the flexibility of using a low-to-the-ground toolbox that can be customized to beat virtually any metagame.
One-Eyed Black | Orzhov Combo | Ooze Reanimator | Mindwheeling Pain
To note, all those matchups are unfavoured you are worried about, so quite rightly you are worried. As I stated in the previous post, I would cut Decays vs Grixis, Jeskai and UW, as well as some Fatal Pushes. I think there is an argument for cutting Rhino as its clunky af and would likely get countered. But IDK about that. Specifically for Grixis GY hate is really powerful which you should bring in.
For Moon, leave in decay for obvious reasons. This is surely almost unbeatable, but I guess you can cut Rhino and Fatal Push for some Surgicals/extra discard.
Shriekmaw is a good choice in a delirium build I think. Just think about it, you got a tutorable removal there. I think this is valuable enough. It is a shame that it doesn't hit DS though.
I am also interested in testing this list, always respect the GBx godfather Edel for articles/content like this, in fact, I am going to try it this weeks FNM.