Certain token based strategies make a lot of the same type of token. Namely, spirits - Lingering Souls + Spectral Procession. Echoing Truth is pretty good there.
I'm aware of that and I despise these decks, so I'm more than willing to pack hate against them. But they are so rare that I can't justify dedicating more than three sideboard slots to them currently. Grixis has so many good sideboard options. It is a pain to decide on 15 cards.
Hey guys, new to the deck here, just got the last couple of Snapcasters I needed for it.
I have one question about the manabase though: I don't have access to any number of Scalding Tarns at the moment; what's the best combination of fetch/shocklands to replace it? I have at my disposal 4x each of Deltas, Flooded Strands, Bloodstained Mires and Verdant Catacombs, as well as any number of shocklands. Thanks!
I'd start out with 4x Deltas, 4x Mires, 1x Catacombs and 3x Flooded Strand to try and maintain a decent amount of blue fetchlands to cover my bases against a Blood Moon.
Wouldn't the Catacombs be more important than the Strands? Strands can fetch four of your lands, where Catacombs can fetch five (assuming you're running two Blood Crypts and one Steam Vents). Even still I would suggest 2/2 split on Catacombs and Strands if no Tarns are available.
EDIT: Maybe even 2/1 in favor of Catacombs with an extra Watery Grave instead of the 12th fetch?
Except that Kozilek's Return seems to be about as popular as Anger of the Gods. So it's really more of a "one sweeper" slot, depending on the expected meta.
These are the actual hard numbers, there's no guesswork here. If you want some statistics, 79% of players were playing at least 1 Anger, and only 30% played at least 1 K Return. So Anger is definitely the more popular choice.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
These are the actual hard numbers, there's no guesswork here. If you want some statistics, 79% of players were playing at least 1 Anger, and only 30% played at least 1 K Return. So Anger is definitely the more popular choice.
You are right, I didn't look at enough deck lists. Of the most recent lists on mtgtop8.com (after the big breakout appearance of the deck on May 28th), 3 where running Kozilek's Return and 1 was running Anger of the Gods. But that's a very small sample size. Looking at the numbers of the last two weeks, I found that 62.5% of the 16 Grixis Shadow decks posted on the site were running at least one Anger, and 37.5% were running at least one Kozilek's Return. That means the distance between the two numbers in my sample was only half as big as your numbers suggest, but still clearly in favor of Anger. Plus, Anger is more often run as a two-of.
The difference in our samples might be coincidence and you probably have taken into account a much larger sample size than me. But the race of arms does not seem completely hopeless for Kozilek's Return. I could imagine that the fact that CoCo combo was the flavor of the month deck in May pushed people more towards Anger of the Gods. Now that our deck is flavor of the month, things might not remain the same.
My data was from May 4th to June 5th, all mtgo 5-0s and last week's paper tournaments. I didn't include the smaller local tournaments they post on mtgtop8.com just because I can't tell how representative they are. I think K Return is better if you expect a lot of Affinity, but Dredge is a worse matchup for us, so I think it might be worth it to try to help that matchup more than a somewhat even matchup. I do like K Return, though, I was playing it for a bit.
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Modern UBR Grixis Shadow UBR UR Izzet Phoenix UR UW UW Control UW GB GB Rock GB
Commander BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
I'm aware of that and I despise these decks, so I'm more than willing to pack hate against them. But they are so rare that I can't justify dedicating more than three sideboard slots to them currently. Grixis has so many good sideboard options. It is a pain to decide on 15 cards.
Oh, I misinterpreted your original post. I thought you said something about Echoing Truth being *bad* vs tokens.
Except that Kozilek's Return seems to be about as popular as Anger of the Gods. So it's really more of a "one sweeper" slot, depending on the expected meta.
These are the actual hard numbers, there's no guesswork here. If you want some statistics, 79% of players were playing at least 1 Anger, and only 30% played at least 1 K Return. So Anger is definitely the more popular choice.
I've been trying Anger again lately, and I'm pretty firmly back on Kozilek's Return. I don't think Anger moves the needle in any matchup like K Return does vs affinity, and both are pretty good in all the spots where you want a sweeper, with some exceptions for both. Most importantly, Anger doesn't seem to help the dredge matchup as much as I want it to.
I'm currently testing 2 Angers again in my sideboard. Against fast aggro decks (RW humans, Revolt Zoo etc.), the lifeloss from getting shocklands has been painful so far and sometimes kept me from making the optimal plays on the following turns due to a shortage of other colored mana. I liked that Anger killed an extra creature or two, but Kozilek's Return feels downright elegant in comparison.
I played one match against Dredge and went 2-0 without getting the opportunity to play Anger because the only copy that showed up in game 2 was thoughtseized. At least it was an attractive target.
I was also testing Mana Leak and managed to leak 2 Carthaic Reunions, stubborn-denialed a Lava Axe on my Angler, leaving them with an empty hand. Then I rakdos-charmed their yard on my turn. It felt really good, but it was pure luck on my part.
The Mana Leaks were not that helpful against traditional Jund and Abzan decks though. They softened my defenses with discard spells and then sneaked in LotV. The Inquisitions I had taken out for the Mana Leaks would have been much better in these situations. I think I hadn't appreciated how much Inquisition of Kozilek does for this deck in this kind of matchup before.
I like Mana Leak vs Abzan specifically because countering Siege Rhino is important. But I usually shave one postboard vs. those decks for the reasons you mentioned.
I haven't seen excessive numbers of Rhinos lately, probably because they can't trade with Reality Smasher. I've seen some Shriekmaws though, so they seem to be very confident that they will beat us even with a suboptimal configurations.
Yeah, they shouldn't be playing Rhino. It's too slow for the format, but it happens to be good against us. And there are some stubborn Abzan players in my local metagame.
Hey y'all! I know this is my first post in a while, and I have a good one for you! This is my first tournament report, in which I played in a Team Unified Modern with 2 of my good friends(shoutout to Walking Ballistas for Harambe), where we took first. I sat in Seat 1, and my teammates played Fish and Counters Company. I took the deck to a flawless 6-0 record, never dropping a game, ending with a perfect 12-0 record with this beast of a deck:
So, now to the matchups throughout the day.
Round 1: Mirror
So, I sat down Round 1, and my opponent told me that he had only been playing the deck for a day, at which point I knew I had the experience factor. I outplayed him game one, after he kept a sketchy hand and I landed 2 Shadows and killed him quick. In this matchup, I believe the delve threats are the way to win, so I boarded grave ate to stop his, and the denials because we are a noncreature focused deck. Game 2, he kept another sketchy, and I quickly dispatched him.
Round 2: Ad Nauseam
Game 1 he mulled all the way to 4, aaaaaaand we can all assume how this went. I sideboarded discard and all 4 counters, he did Turn 0 Leyline, which shut off my 'Seize in hand, and the Bolt I had in the opener, and the one I drew immediately. In this instance, I Bolted myself on Turn 1 and 2, then landed a Shadow that had 10 power. I attacked him to 10, and on his turn, he tried to chump me out with the Lightning Storm he had, which I Denialed, which he had Pact for, which I Denialed again, and he conceded.
Round 3: Fish
Honestly I don't remember much about this match, except I targeted the lords with discard almost exclusively, specifically Master of Waves. I grinded him out both games, and that was that.
Round 4: Counters Company
Game 1, we both mulled to Six, and he had a dork, some lands, and a CoCo and Chord(i knew because 'Seize on the draw), and I took CoCo. He didn't draw much, I killed him a few turns later. I sideboarded in Anger, and Game 2 was similar to Game 1, except so much more brutal for him. I crushed him this game. Don't remember exact sequence, but it was kinda awesome.
Round 5: U/R Control (?)
Honestly don't know what this deck was. I saw Bolt, Electrolyze, Monastery Swiftspear, and Vendillion Clique, along with Izzet Charm. He told me after the game that he wasn't on Moon though, so maybe Prowess? Not trying to mean to this gentleman, but I honestly didn't see much of his deck because the games were so quick. The most interesting thing that happened was a counter war in Game 2 to try to Bolt me out that left him DOB.
Round 6: Draw into Top 4
Top 4 Semifinal: Rematch vs Fish from Round 3
This was more brutal and efficient than last time. He mulled both games, and just didn't have a chance Game 1. I boarded a slightly different way, as I boarded in the Brutality. I crushed him, in a nutshell.
We split the Finals, and we had higher standing, so we won!
Moving forward, I'm going to cut 2 of the Molten Rain, as I never boarded them, nor thought about it. In GP Las Vegas(anyone else going?), I'm expecting a lot of the mirror, so I'm going to be using 2 Rise//Fall, which I believe is great in the mirror. If you have any questions, you can always ask me! Thanks again y'all for being such a great forum. Really glad to see this deck take it's rightful place in the Tier of the format.
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How I like to win games:
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
Wouldn't the Catacombs be more important than the Strands? Strands can fetch four of your lands, where Catacombs can fetch five (assuming you're running two Blood Crypts and one Steam Vents). Even still I would suggest 2/2 split on Catacombs and Strands if no Tarns are available.
EDIT: Maybe even 2/1 in favor of Catacombs with an extra Watery Grave instead of the 12th fetch?
My suggestion means 9 Fetches to get basic Swamp and 7 that gets basic Island. Not taking the already present fetches into account, then I'd absolutely go for the black ones, but being able to fetch up basic Island can be very important when facing a Blood Moon on the stack. I'd be hesitant to replace a fetchland with a shockland in this deck personally, but I guess that could also be something to explore.
Thanks for the report. But now I feel like a bad pilot, because I never went 12-0, not even close.
In my last match against Fish, they went first playing Aether Vial. Then they vialed in a creature every turn and spread the seas on my lands twice, drawing four extra cards in three turns while keeping up pressure. In the second game the only type of creature they drew were two-mana-lords (I'm not exaggerating), of which I had them discard two and killed another two in conventional ways, but the last two lords and a Mutavault islandwalked over me for lethal while my Angler was mindlessly staring at them.
They obviously had some good draws in those games, but even the games I won against them with this deck felt hard-earned. A monocolored deck with up to 29 creatures is nothing to sneeze at. Going 4-0 against Fish is a real accomplishment and makes me wonder if I have been doing something wrong.
I've been trying Anger again lately, and I'm pretty firmly back on Kozilek's Return. I don't think Anger moves the needle in any matchup like K Return does vs affinity, and both are pretty good in all the spots where you want a sweeper, with some exceptions for both. Most importantly, Anger doesn't seem to help the dredge matchup as much as I want it to.
Anger is huge against Dredge, which is a much worse matchup for us than Affinity is. In his Vs. Series video yesterday, Brad Nelson said he underestimated Dredge going into SCG Baltimore, and that he will definitely be playing Anger at SCG Charlotte. I think if you're only running 1 sweeper it should be Anger, but there's definitely a case for going with a split if you're running 2 sweepers.
I haven't been able to beat affinity lately. Too many creatures to deal with and they drop their hand quick. Not sure if game 1 is even winnable unless they draw poorly. Game 2, just hope you draw your sweeper asap. I have both Anger and Return in my SB and like the split. I bring them both in when I need a sweeper. I played last night and could not draw the third land otherwise I would have wiped his board with Return. After the match I showed him a Staticaster and Kozilek's Return sitting in my hand the whole time and he cringed. Rise//Fall has been pretty sweet and been liking it thus far. It works decently in this deck I think. I wait to use it knowing they are banking some cards in hand while I have to deal with their boardstate.
Not sure what to sideboard out in that matchup other than Street Wraith, IoK and some Thoughtseizes.
Commander GUR Maelstrom Wanderer BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith RRR Feldon of the Third Path WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
I would not board out IOK against Affinity. Edged Champion, Arcbound Ravager and Bloodmoon are not their
typical turn 1 plays (unless they have a total nuts draw). The chance of stripping one of these from their hand is worth the risk of hitting a dead draw later. And IOK might not even be a dead draw, because they will usually start hoarding Galvanic Blasts if the game goes longer. Even if they throw them in your face in response (and they might not have enough mana for two), you gain valuable information on how much you can lower your lifetotal without losing the game. Plus, they might be forced into blocking your Shadow if it outgrows their lifetotal as a result and other good stuff.
I've been trying Anger again lately, and I'm pretty firmly back on Kozilek's Return. I don't think Anger moves the needle in any matchup like K Return does vs affinity, and both are pretty good in all the spots where you want a sweeper, with some exceptions for both. Most importantly, Anger doesn't seem to help the dredge matchup as much as I want it to.
Anger is huge against Dredge, which is a much worse matchup for us than Affinity is. In his Vs. Series video yesterday, Brad Nelson said he underestimated Dredge going into SCG Baltimore, and that he will definitely be playing Anger at SCG Charlotte. I think if you're only running 1 sweeper it should be Anger, but there's definitely a case for going with a split if you're running 2 sweepers.
I don't like choosing SB cards to fix bad matchups. I choose them to maximize my win percentage. Sometimes that means sacrificing a bad matchup. I've Angered Dredge a lot, and it's never as good as I hope. It often forces us to deal extra damage to ourselves, forces us to hit the 3rd land drop in time, and doesn't prevent them from continuing to dredge and find more threats or conflagrate them out. It certainly helps, but it's merely good instead of great in my experience. But having K Return in the Affinity matchup really swings it in a way that Anger doesn't in the Dredge matchup. So my take is that until I expect to play against significantly more Dredge than Affinity, I prefer K Return.
That said, I'm not certain about my assessment of the card, and I keep trying to find ways to not hurt the Affinity matchup too much while replacing those K Returns for Angers. It just hasn't worked out yet.
Wouldn't the Catacombs be more important than the Strands? Strands can fetch four of your lands, where Catacombs can fetch five (assuming you're running two Blood Crypts and one Steam Vents). Even still I would suggest 2/2 split on Catacombs and Strands if no Tarns are available.
EDIT: Maybe even 2/1 in favor of Catacombs with an extra Watery Grave instead of the 12th fetch?
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
The difference in our samples might be coincidence and you probably have taken into account a much larger sample size than me. But the race of arms does not seem completely hopeless for Kozilek's Return. I could imagine that the fact that CoCo combo was the flavor of the month deck in May pushed people more towards Anger of the Gods. Now that our deck is flavor of the month, things might not remain the same.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Oh, I misinterpreted your original post. I thought you said something about Echoing Truth being *bad* vs tokens.
I've been trying Anger again lately, and I'm pretty firmly back on Kozilek's Return. I don't think Anger moves the needle in any matchup like K Return does vs affinity, and both are pretty good in all the spots where you want a sweeper, with some exceptions for both. Most importantly, Anger doesn't seem to help the dredge matchup as much as I want it to.
I played one match against Dredge and went 2-0 without getting the opportunity to play Anger because the only copy that showed up in game 2 was thoughtseized. At least it was an attractive target.
I was also testing Mana Leak and managed to leak 2 Carthaic Reunions, stubborn-denialed a Lava Axe on my Angler, leaving them with an empty hand. Then I rakdos-charmed their yard on my turn. It felt really good, but it was pure luck on my part.
The Mana Leaks were not that helpful against traditional Jund and Abzan decks though. They softened my defenses with discard spells and then sneaked in LotV. The Inquisitions I had taken out for the Mana Leaks would have been much better in these situations. I think I hadn't appreciated how much Inquisition of Kozilek does for this deck in this kind of matchup before.
4 Death's Shadow
4 Street Wraith
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
2 Gurmag Angler
Spells:
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
3 Fatal Push
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Serum Visions
4 Thought Scour
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Watery Grave
2 Blood Crypt
1 Steam Vents
1 Island
1 Swamp
3 Molten Rain
2 Liliana, the Last Hope
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Collective Brutality
1 Rakdos Charm
So, now to the matchups throughout the day.
Round 1: Mirror
So, I sat down Round 1, and my opponent told me that he had only been playing the deck for a day, at which point I knew I had the experience factor. I outplayed him game one, after he kept a sketchy hand and I landed 2 Shadows and killed him quick. In this matchup, I believe the delve threats are the way to win, so I boarded grave ate to stop his, and the denials because we are a noncreature focused deck. Game 2, he kept another sketchy, and I quickly dispatched him.
Round 2: Ad Nauseam
Game 1 he mulled all the way to 4, aaaaaaand we can all assume how this went. I sideboarded discard and all 4 counters, he did Turn 0 Leyline, which shut off my 'Seize in hand, and the Bolt I had in the opener, and the one I drew immediately. In this instance, I Bolted myself on Turn 1 and 2, then landed a Shadow that had 10 power. I attacked him to 10, and on his turn, he tried to chump me out with the Lightning Storm he had, which I Denialed, which he had Pact for, which I Denialed again, and he conceded.
Round 3: Fish
Honestly I don't remember much about this match, except I targeted the lords with discard almost exclusively, specifically Master of Waves. I grinded him out both games, and that was that.
Round 4: Counters Company
Game 1, we both mulled to Six, and he had a dork, some lands, and a CoCo and Chord(i knew because 'Seize on the draw), and I took CoCo. He didn't draw much, I killed him a few turns later. I sideboarded in Anger, and Game 2 was similar to Game 1, except so much more brutal for him. I crushed him this game. Don't remember exact sequence, but it was kinda awesome.
Round 5: U/R Control (?)
Honestly don't know what this deck was. I saw Bolt, Electrolyze, Monastery Swiftspear, and Vendillion Clique, along with Izzet Charm. He told me after the game that he wasn't on Moon though, so maybe Prowess? Not trying to mean to this gentleman, but I honestly didn't see much of his deck because the games were so quick. The most interesting thing that happened was a counter war in Game 2 to try to Bolt me out that left him DOB.
Round 6: Draw into Top 4
Top 4 Semifinal: Rematch vs Fish from Round 3
This was more brutal and efficient than last time. He mulled both games, and just didn't have a chance Game 1. I boarded a slightly different way, as I boarded in the Brutality. I crushed him, in a nutshell.
We split the Finals, and we had higher standing, so we won!
Moving forward, I'm going to cut 2 of the Molten Rain, as I never boarded them, nor thought about it. In GP Las Vegas(anyone else going?), I'm expecting a lot of the mirror, so I'm going to be using 2 Rise//Fall, which I believe is great in the mirror. If you have any questions, you can always ask me! Thanks again y'all for being such a great forum. Really glad to see this deck take it's rightful place in the Tier of the format.
Modern:
Grixis Shadow
Burn
Titanshift
Copycat (Given up currently, not entirely sure what it needs)
Legacy:
Burn
B/R Reanimator (slowly building
EDH:
Sedris Control/Reanimation
My suggestion means 9 Fetches to get basic Swamp and 7 that gets basic Island. Not taking the already present fetches into account, then I'd absolutely go for the black ones, but being able to fetch up basic Island can be very important when facing a Blood Moon on the stack. I'd be hesitant to replace a fetchland with a shockland in this deck personally, but I guess that could also be something to explore.
In my last match against Fish, they went first playing Aether Vial. Then they vialed in a creature every turn and spread the seas on my lands twice, drawing four extra cards in three turns while keeping up pressure. In the second game the only type of creature they drew were two-mana-lords (I'm not exaggerating), of which I had them discard two and killed another two in conventional ways, but the last two lords and a Mutavault islandwalked over me for lethal while my Angler was mindlessly staring at them.
They obviously had some good draws in those games, but even the games I won against them with this deck felt hard-earned. A monocolored deck with up to 29 creatures is nothing to sneeze at. Going 4-0 against Fish is a real accomplishment and makes me wonder if I have been doing something wrong.
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
UBR Grixis Shadow UBR
UR Izzet Phoenix UR
UW UW Control UW
GB GB Rock GB
Commander
BG Meren of Clan Nel Toth BG
BGUW Atraxa, Praetor's Voice BGUW
Not sure what to sideboard out in that matchup other than Street Wraith, IoK and some Thoughtseizes.
GURB Grixis/Jund Shadow
RBG Dredge
xUx U Ballista Tron
Commander
GUR Maelstrom Wanderer
BWU Sydri, Galvanic Genius
BGB Meren of Clan Nel Toth
WGW Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith
RRR Feldon of the Third Path
WWW Heliod, God of the Sun
typical turn 1 plays (unless they have a total nuts draw). The chance of stripping one of these from their hand is worth the risk of hitting a dead draw later. And IOK might not even be a dead draw, because they will usually start hoarding Galvanic Blasts if the game goes longer. Even if they throw them in your face in response (and they might not have enough mana for two), you gain valuable information on how much you can lower your lifetotal without losing the game. Plus, they might be forced into blocking your Shadow if it outgrows their lifetotal as a result and other good stuff.
I don't like choosing SB cards to fix bad matchups. I choose them to maximize my win percentage. Sometimes that means sacrificing a bad matchup. I've Angered Dredge a lot, and it's never as good as I hope. It often forces us to deal extra damage to ourselves, forces us to hit the 3rd land drop in time, and doesn't prevent them from continuing to dredge and find more threats or conflagrate them out. It certainly helps, but it's merely good instead of great in my experience. But having K Return in the Affinity matchup really swings it in a way that Anger doesn't in the Dredge matchup. So my take is that until I expect to play against significantly more Dredge than Affinity, I prefer K Return.
That said, I'm not certain about my assessment of the card, and I keep trying to find ways to not hurt the Affinity matchup too much while replacing those K Returns for Angers. It just hasn't worked out yet.