So I went to a Modern event today, playing BatHickey's list with the Suppression Fields, and I subbed in a Dragonlord Dromoka for the Grave Titan since I don't own Grave Titans. I went 2-3, beating Jund and Nahiri, losing to Jund, Junk, and Blue Moon. Suppression Field directly contributed to my win against Jund, but it was never good if I didn't play it before Turn 2. Oddly, Conflagrate was the MVP for me today--my blue opponents all played Snapcaster Mages on Turn 2 every game, and Conflagrate just killing their only pressure was very useful; I also killed a ton of Lingering Souls tokens against Junk. The play of the day was losing to Blue Moon because I played a Dragonlord Dromoka on Turn 5, only to have my opponent enchant it with Imprisoned in the Moon and destroy it with a Tectonic Edge.
Sounds like a tough lineup of decks to beat--mind explaining what happened in the matches where you lost?
IMO--suppression field for me is behaving like leylines 5-7 (now 5-7, not 5-8). The idea is that mulling against discard and being able to turn 1/2 them or a leyline against BGx is perfect and buys you enough time to just win.
Against the Jund player, I beat him in Game 1 because his hand was terrible, but in games 2 and 3 I kept a hand with Leyline and not much else both games and I was too slow. In Game 2 I drew a Suppression Field later in the game and declined to play it because I wanted to hide it since my position was looking good and I only needed one mana to go off, but he topdecks a Fulminator Mage and punished me. I also had sided out all of my Pentad Prisms and I feel like that was wrong because I just didn't get to 6 mana fast enough.
The Junk match was lost because my opponent drew well. We made it to Game 3, and I kept more Prisms in because of the aforementioned problem, but I was still a bit slow which gave my opponent the ability to cast Golgari Charm on my Leyline so he could topdeck Thoughtseize to take my Ad Nauseam the turn before I could go off (if I had drawn a untapped land the turn before, I win this game).
The Blue Moon deck wasn't a conventional deck, it was playing Blood Moons, but also maindeck Spreading Seas and Imprisoned in the Moon. The games where I drew artifact mana were the games I won. I hadn't seen Imprisoned in the Moon until Game 3, which was lost because I went all in on Dromoka and he surprised me by actually having removal for it in his UR deck.
against mono green decks its probably appropriate to board nothing in/out and just race them. pact of negation on their primal commands or tooth and nail works. do you carry a patrician's scorn? you could bring that in. no shame in losing to mono green, theyre about a turn faster than us.
If you can make room for it. Eidolon of rhetoric is a pain as well as a bunch of other stuff. I usually board out all but 1 pact of negation, maybe a sleight of hand, and bring in a slaughter pact and a supreme verdict.
this is really hypothetical because if im holding up abrupt decay, and the opponent plays ad nauseam, theres a chance he's just gonna burn me out with lightning storm or conflagrate. so i probably spend it on phyrexian unlife or smash the pentad prism a turn earlier.
the coco decks are not as easy as they used to be though, that eldritch evolution changes things a bit
your plan A should always be to burn them out. if they try to chord for burrenting forge tendor in response to lightning storm, counter it with your single pact (zoo and burn like deflecting palm, another reason i like leaving a single pact of negation in).
if they chord/collected company for forge tendor in response to the ad nauseam (before you draw the deck) then kill with the lab man. theyre probably tapped out or out of cards in their hand. or something.
if something else goes wrong, remember that you can play angels graces in your upkeeps do avoid decking, and then play labman if you still have it. win off of serum visions. you probably wanna stick an unlife down though so you dont lose due to state based actions between turns. if you get what i mean.
BatHickey, may I ask about your sideboard plans against Jund/Junk? During the event I played, I really felt like I was at a disadvantage because I didn't know how to fit in 4 Leylines and 4 Suppression Fields. As I said before, I sided out Pentad Prisms and it made me too slow to actually capitalize on my opponent suddenly having nothing to do for 4 turns. Also, you say you're playing 3 Suppression Fields now? What does your sideboard look like?
Standard Mardu Midrange Modern 4 Colour Delver, Naya Midrange CommanderSidisi 1v1, Sliver Overlord, Intet the Dreamer, Mayael the Anima (shameless plug http://youtu.be/4zu4QRvGSo8)
Alright, so lets say your commander is Riku of Two Reflections. Combo commander, to be sure, but lets push this into the realm of absurd. You cast Palinchron and do your Riku thing to make infinite mana because we're going to need it. Forget about your extra Palinchron tokens. A million flying 4/5s is boring. So now you cast Enter the Infinite, because drawing your deck is important. Follow it up with a Obstinate Familiar because not decking yourself is equally important. Laboratory Maniac could work here too, but we're gonna go some more levels deep. Cast a Greater Good because we want a tasteful sac outlet. Follow this up with Parallel Lives, Doubling Season,Copy Enchantment, Clever Impersonator, Mycosynth Latice, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Copy Artifact giving you 6 double token effects. Here's where it gets fun now. Cast a Reef Worm. Sac it to greater good and get 256 Fish, which you sac to get 65,536 whales, which you sac to get 16,777,216 Krakens. Are we done yet? Nope! Cast Thromok the Insatiable, devouring all your krakens to make a 281,474,976,710,656/281,474,976,710,656 Thromok. Where do we go from here though? Let your opponent cast Death Mutation on him! Why, that's 7.20575940x10^16 tokens! Good thing we have Body Double to make another Thromok the Insatiable who will be a 5.19229686x10^33/5.19229686x10^33! Seems big enough, but not for us! Since we're red anyways, lets cast a Furnace of Rath, Dictate of the Twin Gods, and a Fire Servant! Now it's time to Fling your guy, dealing a spicy 4.15383749x10^34 damage to your opponent. To put that in perspective, there are an estimated 3x10^23 stars in the known universe. You dealt more damage than there are stars. That'll give your opponent something to think about. PROTIP: Dodge Spellskite decks
@namida/Keirandthewhale, I win with conflagrate more often the in games with supression field--sometimes field never gets played--then I'd kill with LS. Other times I also have a patrician's scorn in cooincidentally, so I'd kill with the LS again after blowing up field (this would happen against a U-control deck most likely, so they can't fetch for lands to counter stuff until I have 3 pacts in my hand AND go off on their turn).
My usual plan against BGx has just been 4 leylines, 2 thoughtseize + I usually swap up what I'm siding out. Typically I go -1 unlife, slight, serum, spoils, -2 pacts. I've been taking out all pentads and 2 pacts lately, but I think I don't like that as much. My jund opponents learned from me how to beat Ad nauseam and know the match up well, so I have to switch up how I board sometimes to throw them off of what to prioritize. The issue is that I think competent non-absent minded Jund players will always bring in fulminator, which is tough for us to deal with without turn 1 bloom AND enough lands or a simian while also holding pieces of the combo (given no leyline). Pentad often dies, but it comes down before BGx has really drawn that many cards or established clear card advantage with bob, sometimes you can steal games by speeding up, rather than eliminating targets for their removal. Now that I've written this out--I'm pretty settled on taking out -1 unlife, -spoils, -3 pacts, and 1 cantrip for 4 leylines and whatever other 2 cards I'm running at the time for beating jund.
@namida/Keirandthewhale, I win with conflagrate more often the in games with supression field--sometimes field never gets played--then I'd kill with LS. Other times I also have a patrician's scorn in cooincidentally, so I'd kill with the LS again after blowing up field (this would happen against a U-control deck most likely, so they can't fetch for lands to counter stuff until I have 3 pacts in my hand AND go off on their turn).
My usual plan against BGx has just been 4 leylines, 2 thoughtseize + I usually swap up what I'm siding out. Typically I go -1 unlife, slight, serum, spoils, -2 pacts. I've been taking out all pentads and 2 pacts lately, but I think I don't like that as much. My jund opponents learned from me how to beat Ad nauseam and know the match up well, so I have to switch up how I board sometimes to throw them off of what to prioritize. The issue is that I think competent non-absent minded Jund players will always bring in fulminator, which is tough for us to deal with without turn 1 bloom AND enough lands or a simian while also holding pieces of the combo (given no leyline). Pentad often dies, but it comes down before BGx has really drawn that many cards or established clear card advantage with bob, sometimes you can steal games by speeding up, rather than eliminating targets for their removal. Now that I've written this out--I'm pretty settled on taking out -1 unlife, -spoils, -3 pacts, and 1 cantrip for 4 leylines and whatever other 2 cards I'm running at the time for beating jund.
Oh? I was having such a problem with the sideboarding because I was bringing in Suppression Fields and Leylines, which is a lot of cards. What made you conclude that the Fields weren't good here? When are you actually siding them in, then?
Err, there's just a point I want to clarify.
How do you win at instant speed with Suppression Field up ?
This was mentioned on the last page. You bring in Patrician's Scorn so that you can destroy your own Suppression Field after you go off, then kill with LS as usual.
Played yesterday, went 2-2. Loses were against Eldrazi and Taxes (1-2) and against Naya Burn (0-2). The deck felt very vulnerable against Taxes, even though I'm used to play against it. Hatebears / Taxes is still a thing in my meta even though combo decks are not a big thing. I was a bit disappointed with the results. Sideboard is settled
Pretty sure we should be playing with at least 2 Painful Truths in the sideboard. Jund is becoming even more popular, probably in top 3 most likely decks to play against. The truths help us pull ahead of their targeted discard and Liliana.
@ killing through supression field: either you had patrician's scorn in anyway because you wanted it even without field against an opponent with leylines (or you kill with conflagrate on your own turn).
@ Shadowgripper--I agree. I'm testing out nephalia academy right now too, and noticed that its great against targeted discard, but you can run into trouble with liliana locks if you get caught at the wrong time. Truths really helps there in the situations where you don't or can't discard without messing up your angle of attack.
Truths seems great against the decks with targeted discard, and not just at invitational. Are there other matches where it makes sense? The slow control matches like Jeskai come to mind. There it can help keep up the gas when we really don't need to be fast but go long.
I'm finding the spellskites less useful lately, but there has also been a local reduction in infect. The other card in rarely board in is echoing truth.
I've actually been playing a peer/teachings list, but instead of teachings I run a Painful Truths main. I found I was rarely casting teaching and often boarding in Truths, so I just made the swap. It was otherwise a pretty normal peer/teachings list, with labman main. No other spicy tech. It's been serving me pretty well at my locals. Been a solid 2 months straight of doing 3-1 or better, with only one 2-2 because I decided to try a spoils list.
Anyone been considering shaving a copy of pact of negotiation from their main deck lately? Tons of dredge, Jund, Affinity, Suicide zoo running around nowadays. Seem to board them out more often than not so been considering cutting one.
I've actually been playing a peer/teachings list, but instead of teachings I run a Painful Truths main. I found I was rarely casting teaching and often boarding in Truths, so I just made the swap. It was otherwise a pretty normal peer/teachings list, with labman main. No other spicy tech. It's been serving me pretty well at my locals. Been a solid 2 months straight of doing 3-1 or better, with only one 2-2 because I decided to try a spoils list.
Glad to see a Peer/Teaching list rocking FNMs! Mind posting your list?
Can any one figure out what the best play in this situation would be? Its the end of our opponents turn 3 against Jund on game 1 who has three tapped lands, a liliana at 4, and a dark confidant in play. We have two spoils of the vault in our hand, three lands in play, a lotus bloom that is about to come off suspend, and a simian spirit guide in hand. We are at 18 life. Is it better to try to spoils of the vault for angel's grace at the end of their turn (this would give us the ability to combo on our next turn if angels grace is in the top 18, but punishes us if phyrexian unlife or ad nauseam is in the top 2) or would it be better to wait two turns in hopes that we draw angel's grace or phyrexian unlife before liliana can ult (this play reduces the risk losing to spoils, but does risk losing to any removal for the lotus bloom or any more targeted discard and punishes us if angel's grace/phyrexian unlife isn't in the top 2 as this gives us less life to spoils with due to the dark confidant attack). Which play seems optimal; I was in this situation and can't figure out whether or not I made the right play.
I think in that situation I would try to go for the win and not wait. Confidant is going to hit you for 2 so you are going to see 2 less cards plus it's going to draw an extra card. This lets them find more discard, or even an Abrupt Decay or Maelstrom Pulse to hit your Bloom.
The chance of you winning by casting both Spoils is slim, but it's probably slimmer if you just pass and wait.
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Against the Jund player, I beat him in Game 1 because his hand was terrible, but in games 2 and 3 I kept a hand with Leyline and not much else both games and I was too slow. In Game 2 I drew a Suppression Field later in the game and declined to play it because I wanted to hide it since my position was looking good and I only needed one mana to go off, but he topdecks a Fulminator Mage and punished me. I also had sided out all of my Pentad Prisms and I feel like that was wrong because I just didn't get to 6 mana fast enough.
The Junk match was lost because my opponent drew well. We made it to Game 3, and I kept more Prisms in because of the aforementioned problem, but I was still a bit slow which gave my opponent the ability to cast Golgari Charm on my Leyline so he could topdeck Thoughtseize to take my Ad Nauseam the turn before I could go off (if I had drawn a untapped land the turn before, I win this game).
The Blue Moon deck wasn't a conventional deck, it was playing Blood Moons, but also maindeck Spreading Seas and Imprisoned in the Moon. The games where I drew artifact mana were the games I won. I hadn't seen Imprisoned in the Moon until Game 3, which was lost because I went all in on Dromoka and he surprised me by actually having removal for it in his UR deck.
this is really hypothetical because if im holding up abrupt decay, and the opponent plays ad nauseam, theres a chance he's just gonna burn me out with lightning storm or conflagrate. so i probably spend it on phyrexian unlife or smash the pentad prism a turn earlier.
the coco decks are not as easy as they used to be though, that eldritch evolution changes things a bit
if they chord/collected company for forge tendor in response to the ad nauseam (before you draw the deck) then kill with the lab man. theyre probably tapped out or out of cards in their hand. or something.
if something else goes wrong, remember that you can play angels graces in your upkeeps do avoid decking, and then play labman if you still have it. win off of serum visions. you probably wanna stick an unlife down though so you dont lose due to state based actions between turns. if you get what i mean.
Standard Mardu Midrange
Modern 4 Colour Delver, Naya Midrange
CommanderSidisi 1v1, Sliver Overlord, Intet the Dreamer, Mayael the Anima (shameless plug http://youtu.be/4zu4QRvGSo8)
My usual plan against BGx has just been 4 leylines, 2 thoughtseize + I usually swap up what I'm siding out. Typically I go -1 unlife, slight, serum, spoils, -2 pacts. I've been taking out all pentads and 2 pacts lately, but I think I don't like that as much. My jund opponents learned from me how to beat Ad nauseam and know the match up well, so I have to switch up how I board sometimes to throw them off of what to prioritize. The issue is that I think competent non-absent minded Jund players will always bring in fulminator, which is tough for us to deal with without turn 1 bloom AND enough lands or a simian while also holding pieces of the combo (given no leyline). Pentad often dies, but it comes down before BGx has really drawn that many cards or established clear card advantage with bob, sometimes you can steal games by speeding up, rather than eliminating targets for their removal. Now that I've written this out--I'm pretty settled on taking out -1 unlife, -spoils, -3 pacts, and 1 cantrip for 4 leylines and whatever other 2 cards I'm running at the time for beating jund.
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
Lands (20)
2 Flooded Strand
2 Gemstone Mine
2 Island
2 Polluted Delta
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Plains
1 Tolaria West
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Swamp
1 Watery Grave
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Angel's Grace
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Pentad Prism
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
3 Pact of Negation
3 Phyrexian Unlife
2 Peer Through Depths
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Lightning Storm
1 Slaughter Pact
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ethereal Haze
2 Thoughtseize
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Echoing Truth
1 Gigadrowse
1 Patrician's Scorn
1 Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
Changes:
1) 1 Laboratory Maniac mainboard in place of Conflagrate, freeing a slot for the sideboard.
2) 1 Supreme Verdict taking the place of Drown in Sorrow.
3) 1 Gigadrowse taking the free spot.
Sideboard
4 Leyline of Sanctity for BG/x, BW Tokens (discard mostly).
3 Ethereal Haze for Infect and aggro decks.
2 Thoughtseize for Infect, BG/x, combo and control.
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All for control.
1 Echoing Truth for problematic permanents (Pithing Needle, etc.).
1 Gigadrowse for Infect and control.
1 Patrician's Scorn for problematic enchantments (Leyline of Sanctity, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Rule of Law, etc.).
1 Silence for control.
1 Supreme Verdict for sweeping aggro.
Changing to be thought about:
1) Cutting Patrician's Scorn...
2) Having 2 Hurkyl's Recall. Really facing lots of Affinity, but fogs are great for aggro.
3) Supreme Verdict might be a turn too slow compared to Drown in Sorrow.
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
Oh? I was having such a problem with the sideboarding because I was bringing in Suppression Fields and Leylines, which is a lot of cards. What made you conclude that the Fields weren't good here? When are you actually siding them in, then?
This was mentioned on the last page. You bring in Patrician's Scorn so that you can destroy your own Suppression Field after you go off, then kill with LS as usual.
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ethereal Haze
2 Thoughtseize
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Patrician's Scorn
1 Silence
1 Supreme Verdict
Cheers
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
@ Shadowgripper--I agree. I'm testing out nephalia academy right now too, and noticed that its great against targeted discard, but you can run into trouble with liliana locks if you get caught at the wrong time. Truths really helps there in the situations where you don't or can't discard without messing up your angle of attack.
I'm finding the spellskites less useful lately, but there has also been a local reduction in infect. The other card in rarely board in is echoing truth.
Glad to see a Peer/Teaching list rocking FNMs! Mind posting your list?
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
The chance of you winning by casting both Spoils is slim, but it's probably slimmer if you just pass and wait.