You have Contortions and Gut Shots in your 75? I have a hard time believing that would be worth it, given all the SB space you would have to sacrifice for other matchups.
Maybe, but you need to knew which decks are our problem at THIS moment. We have NOW problems vs. Humans? Dont wait... Yes, give up other match ups... But change decklists faster is my opinion. I believe in this forum we are to slow changing our 75 cards even we see where we have problems. As an example i see problems with chalice, but some here laugh about me till they realize it was true. In this time i dont stopped having succes in several stores because i dont wait so long. Till this forum change cards and put chalice out, i put them in again because meta changes again. We should more aggressive in changing decklists dependant on meta
Well I've already stated my position on changing decklists, ie that's it's better to just switch decks when the meta swings unfavorably for E-tron, rather than trying to warp the deck as you're advocating. Of course I agree that when changes to the existing deck make sense, they should be made quickly. Myself (and others) are just disagreeing with the particular changes you're proposing.
If I recall correctly, you were advocating removing Chalices from the deck completely. No one agreed with that.
Also, based on what I've seen, Humans seems to be back in hiding already. I've only seen it 1 time in the last week or so which includes 17 leagues (I've been playing a lot lately :p).
First of all, if eldraziplayers put out fast chalice, we had no bad results 4 time in a row because we had more maindeck removal in this time. so i think several guys realized the mistake in this time. So they played with useless chalice in this tournaments. This means not chalice is bad.
Now meta will fight humans and merfolk, so chalice now will be better again. This is the reason you dont see it now so much.
This all must be happen really fast. Second, you can stop vizier combo even with druid first in play. Kill vizier with gut shot in response of tapping druid. I forget answering bevore
I honestly don't understand the first point you're trying to make.
If you Gut Shot Vizier in response to them tapping Druid, they just untap it in response and go off. There's no scenario where that works.
Could you post up your deck list so we can get a feeling of what you are proposing. I can't tell if you are running Gut Shot in the main, side or both.
I've played around with speeding up the deck quite a while ago when I played a package of 3 Gemstone Caverns and 4 Simian Spirit Guide to speed out Chalice and our other low mana spells. If I feel I need to get quicker I'll probably just try that again. I see where Gut Shot helps vs. Humans/Elves/Merfolk on Turn 1 on the play or draw and turn 2 as well. Past that point it may as well be a dead card though against certain decks. So are you advocating Gut Shot in the sideboard or main board? We may be having some difficulty communicating as I'm guessing English may not be your native language from your posts. No problem with that, I'm just trying to understand your strategy fully.
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STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I will keep an open mind to the possibility of Gut Shot versus certain decks in my meta. I'm still curious about any other "tech" out there that could help us vs. the current meta. I haven't encountered the Humans deck in my paper meta yet, but I've proxied up the deck and am going to lend it to family and friends to run vs. my E-Tron deck so I can get properly acquainted with it.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
After back to back demoralizing 1-4's in competitive leagues, I decided to fire up Remember the Titans for a league ... and got 4-1. Lost to Eldrazi and Taxes (hate that match), beat Jeskai Control, GB Tron, the mirror, and Tooth and Nail.
Don't know how sicsmoo manages 17 leagues in a week ... I barely have time for 5 or so.
FWIW, here are the 1-4 comp league records. Small sample size, but it felt bad.
L 2-1 Dredge
L 2-0 Affinity
W 2-0 Eldrazi Tron
L 2-1 RG Ponza
L 2-1 Mardu Midrange
L 2-0 Jeskai
L 2-1 Four Color Death's Shadow
L 2-0 GB Tron
L 2-0 Humans
W 2-0 Elves
Asked a friend to play the deck and I wanted the worst case scenario so we played 6 game ones with Humans on the play each game. Went 2-4 somehow in those matches basically because I think he kept hands he should have mulled, one a one-lander with a plains (he did have a Vial) and another 5 lander (no vial). Those were the only 2 games I managed to assemble Tron as well. And the second one was slow enough that an Oblivion Stone saved me as I stabilized at 4 life.
Some thoughts from my first exposure:
Chalice is useless against them. Too slow and if there are one or at times 2 Vials out its pointless.
Without fast Tron its a blowout.
Big Thalia Turn 2 on the draw shuts us down hard.
Little Thalia Turn 2 hurts bad.
We are too slow versus this deck barring some luck.
They do have a greedy land base with only one basic. Ghost Quarter could do some work here if we went with 4 possibly.
Removal is the way to go. But even then its tough. (So Gut Shot is a possibility)
If this pops up a lot I may have to revert to my 7 card fast package and move all Chalices to the side. Guess we will see what happens.
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STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Its too bad Culling Scales wasn't 2 cmc instead of 3 cmc. It could be a decent sideboard card vs. the 5 color Humans with an ability to take out a Champion, Hierarch or Vial on turn 3. As it stands you have to wait until upkeep of turn 4 and it might be too late by then. Gotta keep searching.
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STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Its too bad Culling Scales wasn't 2 cmc instead of 3 cmc. It could be a decent sideboard card vs. the 5 color Humans with an ability to take out a Champion, Hierarch or Vial on turn 3. As it stands you have to wait until upkeep of turn 4 and it might be too late by then. Gotta keep searching.
That's an interesting card. Mind Stone or Warping Wail won't help getting it out any earlier either.
This was what my 2nd son (12yo then) used in an LGS to get 1st to get the 2 byes in GP Brisbane earlier on this year. We only had 1 chalice bought locally (US$40 <-- cheap compared to now), and all other chalices were still inbound from TCGPlayer and could not make the event on time. Had to travel to another town to play this.
Some of the deck choices were crude by quite a bit: e.g. the 2x spellskites could be for mindstones or wail + dismember; kozilek could be a ratchet bomb (he SB'ed it out a lot for the ratchet bomb.
The meta back then had 1 dredge guy he played TWICE, burn, and a lot of aggro creature-heavy decks: one of them was a bant but human-themed deck that contained thalia too, and very similar to what we have as humans today, who played against my son in top 2 and still lost 0-2 to this chalice-light deck. And heavy playtesting at home plus previous events showed that this still had a 60-40 against burn, affinity, infect. Spellskites to stop repeatable damage from lighter dudes backed with lots of removals mainboard.
The point I'm trying to make here is this: in one of my earlier posts I do believe E-tron has 3 choices back then earlier in 2017:
- Play explosive unfair. We know it to be it's current for these days: mana acceleration as first priority and trying not to interact until then. 4x chalice, mindstones, and even everlasting chalice reflect this.
- Midrange. Warping wails over mindstone reflect this. Similar to unfair, chalices in the main to enjoy mana acceleration (slightly deprioratized) for early lockdown.
- Control. Chalices to the side reflect this (too slow), control the board/GY state (kill creatures then surgical them off; spellskite hold; and the abovementioned gutshot wow er.....lemme think about this). But basically early defences against aggro, then wincons (mana accelerated pieces) come into play.
I'm not only being the devil's advocate here trying to agree with mtgnorin only on his point of needing to change for humans, but highlighting that we might have truly forgotten the control element of eldrazitron. If we could forget about this, they (i.e. opponents) could also forget about this and I believe this might be the surprise element that could be very relevant today.
I've been incredibly busy past 2 and next 4 weeks so am going to be hard pressed to test this concept, and will do so if there is some level of success. However, there's really nothing to lose here trying something new: if the meta is getting very unfriendly to our current form of build, why not something they'll never expect? (oi, where is your chalice of the void??)
Thoughts on Titan's Presence? Probably has been brought up before, but I can't recall anything recent.
It's definitely a bit slow, and it's conditional.. but the exile is nice, and with our creatures, this could hit just about anything.
My son disagreed back then. I'll find out more why but remember only something like: too conditional.
I listen to him a lot and let him change choices in deck elements. He's got a better track record of wins compared to me, especially in legacy so I have to defer.
Add1: Replied via chat (it's school hours, so it's brief)
It costs 3. Reveals a card (ie. Tks or smasher) just to remove 1 creature
I'm guessing it's still too slow, and we have like only 8-12 creatures i.e. low percentage of it in our hand to do so.
If one were to look at the Chalices as a finisher rather as a permanent that needs to get out the door ASAP, moving 2 or 4 of them to the sideboard could be considered.
Current meta top dogs:
- Burn's down a little
- Infects up a little
- Affinity constant
- Storm's top dog
- Humans climbing fast
- Valakut constant?
- UW/x control up
- Abzan down
- Collected counters up
The question is which of these does a control-based E-tron have a good chance against? I have less to fear about the first 5 with this attempted build MB; ergo the only question left is whether or not we can deal with humans as a control/midrange deck.
The #1 thing that separates our deck from most of the decks that we face is our lack of card draw and filtering. It just seems like whatever deck we are playing, they have the answers when they need it more often than not. For us, we are usually in the mode of hoping for great draws the hoping to topdeck what we need.
I will almost always chump with a Reshaper if I can, just to see another card. Getting a free land onto the battlefield ahead of curve is worth it IMHO. Endbringer can get us cards, but it's slow. Seagate is nice but it's only a factor in really grindy games, which doesn't happen that often (especially in this meta).
I was playing with Bottled Cloister for a while, and it was great when it worked out. But I found myself always siding it out game 2 for fear of artifact hate, so it kind of felt like a wasted spot a lot of times. I might try it again after my tournament.
I just really feel like what we need to get a leg up on the competition is better early card draw/filtering.
What I think is that the following 3 decks have figured out how to evolve to the current meta. In chronological order:
- collected counters: spit out creatures fast to combo off deflecting interaction.
- DnT and Eldrazi/Taxes: As what one of the SCG commentators said: we've figured out how to deal with spells well, but not with humans well (or something like that). Both these are creature-heavy/based decks that slot spells down
- Humans: nuff said. No spells except a set of vials and it's all creature based for every interaction. It's WoTC's wet dream come true for standard, except it's happening in modern.
Given this problem, the constrains being the core of the MB:
- 1 land
- 1-3 creatures (I placed Ulamog there as a finisher. Anything else is relevant e.g. Ugin, Karn, Kozilek)
- 11-13 other spells <-- that's a lot of spells for control/midrange options these days?
More importantly, what's humans weak towards that colourless spells can offer as a threat/answer, and double up as threats/answers versus others?
My offer:
- 4 warping wail (mana ramp, sorcery counters, removal e.g. affinity swiftspear etc)
- 3 spatial contortion (removal and smasher on steroids)
- 3 surgical extraction (threat thin / land flood spell-based decks; late game creature thins)
- 2 ratchet bomb (ponza, vials, tokens, merfolk, affinity)
- 1 all is dust (coco, humans i.e. creature based wipes)
- 2 phyrexian revokers (vials, ooze. I'm debating this: pithing needle may be better against inkmoth)
- 1 urborg (makes life interesting with surgical and dismember)
- or since the curve is now low, go 23 lands and use the land flex slot plus 1-3 creatures for:
* 4 chalice of the void (trainer wheels); or
* 2 wurmcoil + 2 revokers/needle
I just really feel like what we need to get a leg up on the competition is better early card draw/filtering.
Filigree Familiar can function similar to Reshaper as well. I wouldn't call it quick though.
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STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
@ambulance9102
I have a similar version of the deck with a lot of Warping Wail and Spatial Contortion. I haven't had a lot of success with it, but tbh I haven't played a ton of leagues with it. Also, I prefer Sorcerous Spyglass because the information about what is in the opponents hand is extremely valuable. Phyrexian Revoker is a creature so is much easier to remove.
@mtgnorin
I haven't tried running a bunch of Relics main. Maybe I should. It definitely makes the deck smaller, and it will incidentally give us solid hate vs graveyard decks game 1.
@WarMachinePrime
Yeah, we've talked about Filigree Familiar before. If it was 2 mana, we'd be in business. But we need to be doing something better on turn 3, and Matter Reshaper often gets dropped on turn 2 with Temple. If turn 3 Matter Reshaper is our start, we're usually in trouble.
Yeah, deck feels brutal. A lot more leagues with not a lot of results. I don't even really think this deck is tier 1 right now. Maybe by meta share it's hanging on, but it feels tier 2. I think I'm gonna take a break for a while. Might consider firing up a Gx Tron variant...
Yeah, not to spam the thread but I can definitely vouch for GB Tron being good right now. I've been having tons of success with it over the past few weeks.
That's such a good meta for Tron; you can see why it came in first. Humans isn't great, but it's not bad at all if you're playing lots of MD removal. TONS of control there to prey on, and very few bad matchups there like Storm, Burn, Titan Shift, Ad Naus, etc.
Yeah, not to spam the thread but I can definitely vouch for GB Tron being good right now. I've been having tons of success with it over the past few weeks.
That's such a good meta for Tron; you can see why it came in first. Humans isn't great, but it's not bad at all if you're playing lots of MD removal. TONS of control there to prey on, and very few bad matchups there like Storm, Burn, Titan Shift, Ad Naus, etc.
Looks like I can build it for about $150 with the pieces I already have for ET. It's probably worth it for me because I like the deck a lot anyway. Paper is another story ...
Well I've already stated my position on changing decklists, ie that's it's better to just switch decks when the meta swings unfavorably for E-tron, rather than trying to warp the deck as you're advocating. Of course I agree that when changes to the existing deck make sense, they should be made quickly. Myself (and others) are just disagreeing with the particular changes you're proposing.
If I recall correctly, you were advocating removing Chalices from the deck completely. No one agreed with that.
Also, based on what I've seen, Humans seems to be back in hiding already. I've only seen it 1 time in the last week or so which includes 17 leagues (I've been playing a lot lately :p).
I honestly don't understand the first point you're trying to make.
If you Gut Shot Vizier in response to them tapping Druid, they just untap it in response and go off. There's no scenario where that works.
Could you post up your deck list so we can get a feeling of what you are proposing. I can't tell if you are running Gut Shot in the main, side or both.
I've played around with speeding up the deck quite a while ago when I played a package of 3 Gemstone Caverns and 4 Simian Spirit Guide to speed out Chalice and our other low mana spells. If I feel I need to get quicker I'll probably just try that again. I see where Gut Shot helps vs. Humans/Elves/Merfolk on Turn 1 on the play or draw and turn 2 as well. Past that point it may as well be a dead card though against certain decks. So are you advocating Gut Shot in the sideboard or main board? We may be having some difficulty communicating as I'm guessing English may not be your native language from your posts. No problem with that, I'm just trying to understand your strategy fully.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
I will keep an open mind to the possibility of Gut Shot versus certain decks in my meta. I'm still curious about any other "tech" out there that could help us vs. the current meta. I haven't encountered the Humans deck in my paper meta yet, but I've proxied up the deck and am going to lend it to family and friends to run vs. my E-Tron deck so I can get properly acquainted with it.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Don't know how sicsmoo manages 17 leagues in a week ... I barely have time for 5 or so.
FWIW, here are the 1-4 comp league records. Small sample size, but it felt bad.
L 2-1 Dredge
L 2-0 Affinity
W 2-0 Eldrazi Tron
L 2-1 RG Ponza
L 2-1 Mardu Midrange
L 2-0 Jeskai
L 2-1 Four Color Death's Shadow
L 2-0 GB Tron
L 2-0 Humans
W 2-0 Elves
Asked a friend to play the deck and I wanted the worst case scenario so we played 6 game ones with Humans on the play each game. Went 2-4 somehow in those matches basically because I think he kept hands he should have mulled, one a one-lander with a plains (he did have a Vial) and another 5 lander (no vial). Those were the only 2 games I managed to assemble Tron as well. And the second one was slow enough that an Oblivion Stone saved me as I stabilized at 4 life.
Some thoughts from my first exposure:
Chalice is useless against them. Too slow and if there are one or at times 2 Vials out its pointless.
Without fast Tron its a blowout.
Big Thalia Turn 2 on the draw shuts us down hard.
Little Thalia Turn 2 hurts bad.
We are too slow versus this deck barring some luck.
They do have a greedy land base with only one basic. Ghost Quarter could do some work here if we went with 4 possibly.
Removal is the way to go. But even then its tough. (So Gut Shot is a possibility)
If this pops up a lot I may have to revert to my 7 card fast package and move all Chalices to the side. Guess we will see what happens.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
That's an interesting card. Mind Stone or Warping Wail won't help getting it out any earlier either.
Of course it will eventually destroy itself, too.
It's definitely a bit slow, and it's conditional.. but the exile is nice, and with our creatures, this could hit just about anything.
Event: GPT Brisbane
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarters
1 Sanctum of Ugin
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Wastes
2 Endbringer
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
2 Spellskite
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
2 Wurmcoil Engine
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Warping Wail
1 Chalice of the Void
4 Expedition Map
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
1 All is Dust
1 Artisan of Kozilek
1 Batterskull
1 Dismember
1 Endbringer
2 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Ratchet Bomb
3 Relic of Progenitus
2 Spatial Contortion
1 Warping Wail
This was what my 2nd son (12yo then) used in an LGS to get 1st to get the 2 byes in GP Brisbane earlier on this year. We only had 1 chalice bought locally (US$40 <-- cheap compared to now), and all other chalices were still inbound from TCGPlayer and could not make the event on time. Had to travel to another town to play this.
Some of the deck choices were crude by quite a bit: e.g. the 2x spellskites could be for mindstones or wail + dismember; kozilek could be a ratchet bomb (he SB'ed it out a lot for the ratchet bomb.
The meta back then had 1 dredge guy he played TWICE, burn, and a lot of aggro creature-heavy decks: one of them was a bant but human-themed deck that contained thalia too, and very similar to what we have as humans today, who played against my son in top 2 and still lost 0-2 to this chalice-light deck. And heavy playtesting at home plus previous events showed that this still had a 60-40 against burn, affinity, infect. Spellskites to stop repeatable damage from lighter dudes backed with lots of removals mainboard.
The point I'm trying to make here is this: in one of my earlier posts I do believe E-tron has 3 choices back then earlier in 2017:
- Play explosive unfair. We know it to be it's current for these days: mana acceleration as first priority and trying not to interact until then. 4x chalice, mindstones, and even everlasting chalice reflect this.
- Midrange. Warping wails over mindstone reflect this. Similar to unfair, chalices in the main to enjoy mana acceleration (slightly deprioratized) for early lockdown.
- Control. Chalices to the side reflect this (too slow), control the board/GY state (kill creatures then surgical them off; spellskite hold; and the abovementioned gutshot wow er.....lemme think about this). But basically early defences against aggro, then wincons (mana accelerated pieces) come into play.
I'm not only being the devil's advocate here trying to agree with mtgnorin only on his point of needing to change for humans, but highlighting that we might have truly forgotten the control element of eldrazitron. If we could forget about this, they (i.e. opponents) could also forget about this and I believe this might be the surprise element that could be very relevant today.
I've been incredibly busy past 2 and next 4 weeks so am going to be hard pressed to test this concept, and will do so if there is some level of success. However, there's really nothing to lose here trying something new: if the meta is getting very unfriendly to our current form of build, why not something they'll never expect? (oi, where is your chalice of the void??)
My son disagreed back then. I'll find out more why but remember only something like: too conditional.
I listen to him a lot and let him change choices in deck elements. He's got a better track record of wins compared to me, especially in legacy so I have to defer.
Add1: Replied via chat (it's school hours, so it's brief)
I'm guessing it's still too slow, and we have like only 8-12 creatures i.e. low percentage of it in our hand to do so.
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarters
1 Sea Gate Wreckage
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Urza's Tower
2 Wastes
2 Endbringer
1 Kozilek, the Great Distortion
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Reality Smasher
2 Spellskite
4 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Dismember
2 Spatial Contortion
2 Surgical Extraction
4 Warping Wail
2 Chalice of the Void
4 Expedition Map
2 Ratchet Bomb
1 All is Dust
1 Dismember
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Relic of Progenitus
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Spatial Contortion
3 Thorn of Amethyst
2 Pithing Needle
2 Chalice of the Void
If one were to look at the Chalices as a finisher rather as a permanent that needs to get out the door ASAP, moving 2 or 4 of them to the sideboard could be considered.
Current meta top dogs:
- Burn's down a little
- Infects up a little
- Affinity constant
- Storm's top dog
- Humans climbing fast
- Valakut constant?
- UW/x control up
- Abzan down
- Collected counters up
The question is which of these does a control-based E-tron have a good chance against? I have less to fear about the first 5 with this attempted build MB; ergo the only question left is whether or not we can deal with humans as a control/midrange deck.
Thank you for reading.
I will almost always chump with a Reshaper if I can, just to see another card. Getting a free land onto the battlefield ahead of curve is worth it IMHO. Endbringer can get us cards, but it's slow. Seagate is nice but it's only a factor in really grindy games, which doesn't happen that often (especially in this meta).
I was playing with Bottled Cloister for a while, and it was great when it worked out. But I found myself always siding it out game 2 for fear of artifact hate, so it kind of felt like a wasted spot a lot of times. I might try it again after my tournament.
I just really feel like what we need to get a leg up on the competition is better early card draw/filtering.
- collected counters: spit out creatures fast to combo off deflecting interaction.
- DnT and Eldrazi/Taxes: As what one of the SCG commentators said: we've figured out how to deal with spells well, but not with humans well (or something like that). Both these are creature-heavy/based decks that slot spells down
- Humans: nuff said. No spells except a set of vials and it's all creature based for every interaction. It's WoTC's wet dream come true for standard, except it's happening in modern.
Given this problem, the constrains being the core of the MB:
4 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
1 All is Dust
4 Expedition Map
4 Urza's Mine
4 Urza's Tower
4 Urza's Power Plant
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Cavern of Souls
2 Wastes
1 Seagate Wreckage
That leaves the following flex slots
- 1 land
- 1-3 creatures (I placed Ulamog there as a finisher. Anything else is relevant e.g. Ugin, Karn, Kozilek)
- 11-13 other spells <-- that's a lot of spells for control/midrange options these days?
More importantly, what's humans weak towards that colourless spells can offer as a threat/answer, and double up as threats/answers versus others?
My offer:
- 4 warping wail (mana ramp, sorcery counters, removal e.g. affinity swiftspear etc)
- 3 spatial contortion (removal and smasher on steroids)
- 3 surgical extraction (threat thin / land flood spell-based decks; late game creature thins)
- 2 ratchet bomb (ponza, vials, tokens, merfolk, affinity)
- 1 all is dust (coco, humans i.e. creature based wipes)
- 2 phyrexian revokers (vials, ooze. I'm debating this: pithing needle may be better against inkmoth)
- 1 urborg (makes life interesting with surgical and dismember)
- or since the curve is now low, go 23 lands and use the land flex slot plus 1-3 creatures for:
* 4 chalice of the void (trainer wheels); or
* 2 wurmcoil + 2 revokers/needle
Play the grind game. Thoughts?
Filigree Familiar can function similar to Reshaper as well. I wouldn't call it quick though.
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I have a similar version of the deck with a lot of Warping Wail and Spatial Contortion. I haven't had a lot of success with it, but tbh I haven't played a ton of leagues with it. Also, I prefer Sorcerous Spyglass because the information about what is in the opponents hand is extremely valuable. Phyrexian Revoker is a creature so is much easier to remove.
@mtgnorin
I haven't tried running a bunch of Relics main. Maybe I should. It definitely makes the deck smaller, and it will incidentally give us solid hate vs graveyard decks game 1.
@WarMachinePrime
Yeah, we've talked about Filigree Familiar before. If it was 2 mana, we'd be in business. But we need to be doing something better on turn 3, and Matter Reshaper often gets dropped on turn 2 with Temple. If turn 3 Matter Reshaper is our start, we're usually in trouble.
Just take a look at these results from the last Modern challenge: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/tournament/modern-challenge-10970617#online
That's such a good meta for Tron; you can see why it came in first. Humans isn't great, but it's not bad at all if you're playing lots of MD removal. TONS of control there to prey on, and very few bad matchups there like Storm, Burn, Titan Shift, Ad Naus, etc.
And there's 0 Eldrazi Tron lists in that top 32!
Looks like I can build it for about $150 with the pieces I already have for ET. It's probably worth it for me because I like the deck a lot anyway. Paper is another story ...
Yup, to me the deck is not tier 1 at this moment in time.