Kiki Chord is hard post side with all the hate, last time play again I was confronted with Glen Elendra Archmage maindeck, which represents 2 uncounterable counterspells.
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
4 leyline
3 ethereal haze/darkness/holy day
2 thoughtseize
1 u pact
1 b pact
1 boseiju
1 echoing truth
1 patrician's scorn
1 night of souls betrayal/grave titan (the first if i expect a lot of affinity, the second one if i expect a lot of midrange)
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
I'm trying to challenge the current stock build of the deck and look for any ways to improve on it. I'm going over old pages of the thread to look for old ideas/builds/tech to see if anything needs to be revisit.
I really feel like we can cut the mainboard number of Pact of Negations from 3 to at least 2 with how weak a presence blue has in the meta. I am also trying to explore using more Path to Exiles in the 75 and maybe even using Snapcaster Mages. The later would require a shift from the Spoils.
I'm trying to challenge the current stock build of the deck and look for any ways to improve on it. I'm going over old pages of the thread to look for old ideas/builds/tech to see if anything needs to be revisit.
I really feel like we can cut the mainboard number of Pact of Negations from 3 to at least 2 with how weak a presence blue has in the meta. I am also trying to explore using more Path to Exiles in the 75 and maybe even using Snapcaster Mages. The later would require a shift from the Spoils.
Hey, MoxRuby. I once innocently asked the same question in this thread. This was, in retrospect, the very honest response I got:
Terrible idea. This is simply you being inexperienced with the deck. I say play fetch version, spoils, or now (I suppose) wish version. don't mess with anything until you actually take the deck out for a month or so before suggesting radical changes such as 'interact with your opponent'.
And Bat is right. The thing about linear combo decks is that the reason they are any good in the first place is because they are linear. combo. decks. Your best chance of winning the game, regardless of matchup, is to combo before your opponent can execute their game plan. Spoils and Pact allow us to do this. They are there to help us combo or protect the combo. Essentially we are all in on our game plan before board and history has shown that it is the best plan, especially in a format as unforgiving as Modern.
I'm not saying don't ever try something new. You certainly should. But those cards are there for a very good reason. I always leave at least one Pact in the deck after board, for example, and it has saved me from Spell Pierces out of Infect, Deflecting Palm out of Burn, and even Thoughtseize out of Death's Shadow the turn before I go off enough times for me to continue to do so.
I'm not always the nicest--but my line of thinking about innovation with a deck can be summed up by an article a friend of mine wrote. Take the lesson here to heart (all new guys!).
In other news--after having played this deck for...dunno ages: I finally comboed by casting the drawn lab man and then grace/spoilings in the upkeep and winning off the draw step. I named siege rhino and flipped every card revealing that it was not a rhino. I think this play gets talked about often enough, but basically I've never done it before in lieu of better game play options. I guess achievement unlocked.
Has anybody tested playing 4 Spoils of the Vault and only 2 Pact of Negation in the main?
I'm not, and I've never seen anyone do this. I'm generalizing, but the accepted principle of card counts in a deck is that you run 4 of a card you want to see every game and don't mind seeing multiples of in your opening hand, and you run 3 of a card you'd like to see at least once a game, but don't want to see multiples of in your opener. Spoils is the textbook definition of a 3-of card. It can and does absolutely win you the game, but the high variance and danger associated with the card mean you almost never want to cast it more than once during a game.
I just don't see the advantage of running a playset of a card like that.
Thanks for posting your wishboard Joja. Could you explain the rationale behind the singleton Painful Truths? Have you found Sigarda that much better than Dragonlord Dromoka?
Has anybody tested playing 4 Spoils of the Vault and only 2 Pact of Negation in the main?
I don't like the idea of 4 spoils and dislike removing a pact even more. I agree with Joja that spoils is absolutely the definition of a 3 of card. It can function as an extra combo piece but can't really function as both combo pieces. If I was to run 4 I'd also run 8 temples to be more likely to have a scry effect. One way to utilize multiple spoils is to simply use it to draw a known card of the top in order to dig one card deeper. I just don't see any advantage to a 4th spoils. I'd rather have a one of mystical teachings than a 4th spoils. Pact of negation is such a broken card in our deck. I don't buy the argument that since blue/control is weak in the meta that we should go down a pact. I've won countless games pacting a card the turn before a combo. Stopping a game winning atarka's command from burn or a top decked thoughtseize from jund or a well timed blood moon to shut off our mana the turn before going off is such a powerful play especially considering that the play is for zero mana. Yes we board it out for more specific answers in matches where it's not as good but 90% of the time I still leave one in.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Modern: UBWAd NauseamWBU URStormRU
EDH: BMikaeus the UnhallowedB RWAurelia, the WarleaderWR
Went 3-1 at FNM tonight with the following list. I lost 2-1 to Mardu Nahiri. I lost a game I'm pretty sure I should have won when I cast an EOT Ad Nauseam with a second copy needing only an Angel's Grace to win, I revealed a Spirit Guide, Lightning Storm, Slaughter Pact, Echoing Truth, Phyrexian Unlife and then a Leyline of Sanctity to kill me. I probably should have stopped after the Unlife, but I would have been dead on board to his Nahiri on 6 and a few Lingering Souls tokens. It was brutal.
Beat:
Beat Abzan 2-0
Beat Burn 2-0
Lost Mardu Nahiri 1-2
Beat Eldrazi Tron 2-0
I really liked the maindeck. Mystical Teachings overperformed. Sideboard felt weak. I never boarded in Path to Exile. Elspeth, Sun's Champion seemed like a good card in theory, but wasn't great against my Mardu Nahiri opponent's Kalitas and Lingering Souls tokens, if it had been a Grave Titan I would have won.
Thanks for posting your wishboard Joja. Could you explain the rationale behind the singleton Painful Truths? Have you found Sigarda that much better than Dragonlord Dromoka?
The painful truths comes in as necessary card advantage in the Jund/GBx match or decks with heavy discard. Obviously with our manabase it is very easy to hit the full three colors.
I would have to find the exact post on this thread, but after playing the Wish deck for a few months early this year I found that I hated having sideboard bullets of 6 mana or more. Even the five mana for Sigarda is a stretch, but she's so good in the Jund matchup (or any Liliana deck) that it's hard to say no to her. The problem with 6+ mana spells is that in order to cast them in a reasonable time we have to use up some of our artifact/fast mana. That sets our mana production back far enough that it can eliminate our ability to combo off as a result. That means the 6 mana spells we cast have to win us the game. Dromoka can definitely sometimes do this, but without hexproof she can just as easily die to a removal spell without impacting the board.
Her ability to protect our combo on our turn is useless if we can't actually cast Ad Nauseam because we used up a prism and Simian Spirit Guide just to get her down and no longer have enough mana to go off. I was running into that problem enough with expensive sideboard cards in the Wish deck that I cut them and have not looked back. To be clear, I'm just now getting back into the deck after being away from the game/playing other decks for a while. But those experiences shaped my sideboard decisions as I begin testing with the deck again.
When we play against the discard heavy decks (jund, junk, grixis, BW tokens etc), we sideboard in the 4 Leylines.
How aggressively do you mull for them? Does it affect your mull knowing the white discard decks also board in stony and the red ones might have slaughter games? How about the decks with Liliana?
I am not talking about mulling a ***** 7 with no leyline. That is automatic. I am talking mulling great 7s and 6s without Leyline trying to get 5 with a leyline.
Have discussed this with a local and fellow Ad Nauseam player and we defo do not agree.
If I had a great 7 I'd likely keep. I wouldn't go to 5. If you find a Leyline in your 5 you have a 4 card hand which is virtually the same as being Raven's Crimed 3 times.
When we play against the discard heavy decks (jund, junk, grixis, BW tokens etc), we sideboard in the 4 Leylines.
How aggressively do you mull for them? Does it affect your mull knowing the white discard decks also board in stony and the red ones might have slaughter games? How about the decks with Liliana?
I am not talking about mulling a ***** 7 with no leyline. That is automatic. I am talking mulling great 7s and 6s without Leyline trying to get 5 with a leyline.
Have discussed this with a local and fellow Ad Nauseam player and we defo do not agree.
I would pretty much almost mull a 7 with no leyline against BGx. It is irrelevant how good your hand is since post-board they have probably around 10 targetted discard (thoughtseize/inqui/brutality). 7-cards Hands I would consider keeping is no combo pieces with cantrips and scry lands, as they won't be able to discard your combo pieces, but if you managed to maintain all the combo pieces in the library, then your chance of recovering are OK.
It is important to see how back breaking leyline of sanctity is for Jund (less for abzan as they run white enchantment hates, but still).
When we play against the discard heavy decks (jund, junk, grixis, BW tokens etc), we sideboard in the 4 Leylines.
How aggressively do you mull for them? Does it affect your mull knowing the white discard decks also board in stony and the red ones might have slaughter games? How about the decks with Liliana?
I am not talking about mulling a ***** 7 with no leyline. That is automatic. I am talking mulling great 7s and 6s without Leyline trying to get 5 with a leyline.
Have discussed this with a local and fellow Ad Nauseam player and we defo do not agree.
I would pretty much almost mull a 7 with no leyline against BGx. It is irrelevant how good your hand is since post-board they have probably around 10 targetted discard (thoughtseize/inqui/brutality). 7-cards Hands I would consider keeping is no combo pieces with cantrips and scry lands, as they won't be able to discard your combo pieces, but if you managed to maintain all the combo pieces in the library, then your chance of recovering are OK.
It is important to see how back breaking leyline of sanctity is for Jund (less for abzan as they run white enchantment hates, but still).
I have lost plenty of games to BGx. I feel like getting 5 cards where leyline is one almost has to be the perfect remaining 4 as we basically lose to a simgle abrupt decay targetting our mana or unlife. Even a leyline just means liliana t3 is auto loss.
Jund is better than junk, as junk has discard, abrupt decay/maelstrom pulse and stony silence post board.
The hands i keep is mana (lotus pref), lands and cantrips to accelerate me into a value ad nauseam or a lucky combo turn.
I think the leyline question is sort of dependent on what else is in people's builds.
I think if you're running grave titan--I keep whatever hands look decent because you can just ramp and topdeck your way into a titan or hope they fall a little short on disruption and combo naturally. If you don't have a leyline, I aim for redundant hands with as many combo pieces as possible and try to not scry/cantrip away additional combo pieces. Nothing feels worse than scrying away an ad nauseam (because you want a land), only to have the maelstrom pulse hit your leyline and then be followed up by a seize for your AN.
That being said--wish there was an additional one or two cards with a larger impact than grave titan (cheaper really would be better) or leyline.
RG Titan Scapeshift GR
UBWAd Nauseam WBU
CEldrazi TronC
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)
3 ethereal haze/darkness/holy day
2 thoughtseize
1 u pact
1 b pact
1 boseiju
1 echoing truth
1 patrician's scorn
1 night of souls betrayal/grave titan (the first if i expect a lot of affinity, the second one if i expect a lot of midrange)
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)
I really feel like we can cut the mainboard number of Pact of Negations from 3 to at least 2 with how weak a presence blue has in the meta. I am also trying to explore using more Path to Exiles in the 75 and maybe even using Snapcaster Mages. The later would require a shift from the Spoils.
Hey, MoxRuby. I once innocently asked the same question in this thread. This was, in retrospect, the very honest response I got:
And Bat is right. The thing about linear combo decks is that the reason they are any good in the first place is because they are linear. combo. decks. Your best chance of winning the game, regardless of matchup, is to combo before your opponent can execute their game plan. Spoils and Pact allow us to do this. They are there to help us combo or protect the combo. Essentially we are all in on our game plan before board and history has shown that it is the best plan, especially in a format as unforgiving as Modern.
I'm not saying don't ever try something new. You certainly should. But those cards are there for a very good reason. I always leave at least one Pact in the deck after board, for example, and it has saved me from Spell Pierces out of Infect, Deflecting Palm out of Burn, and even Thoughtseize out of Death's Shadow the turn before I go off enough times for me to continue to do so.
http://www.hipstersofthecoast.com/2014/10/silence-exile-cunning-netdecking-fnm/
In other news--after having played this deck for...dunno ages: I finally comboed by casting the drawn lab man and then grace/spoilings in the upkeep and winning off the draw step. I named siege rhino and flipped every card revealing that it was not a rhino. I think this play gets talked about often enough, but basically I've never done it before in lieu of better game play options. I guess achievement unlocked.
I'm not epdt, but this is the WishBoard I am testing currently (and is based off my previous experience with the deck):
1 Vexing Shusher
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
3 Ethereal Haze
1 Wear // Tear
1 Fiery Justice
1 Painful Truths
1 Wargate
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Bring to Light
I'm not, and I've never seen anyone do this. I'm generalizing, but the accepted principle of card counts in a deck is that you run 4 of a card you want to see every game and don't mind seeing multiples of in your opening hand, and you run 3 of a card you'd like to see at least once a game, but don't want to see multiples of in your opener. Spoils is the textbook definition of a 3-of card. It can and does absolutely win you the game, but the high variance and danger associated with the card mean you almost never want to cast it more than once during a game.
I just don't see the advantage of running a playset of a card like that.
Thanks for posting your wishboard Joja. Could you explain the rationale behind the singleton Painful Truths? Have you found Sigarda that much better than Dragonlord Dromoka?
I don't like the idea of 4 spoils and dislike removing a pact even more. I agree with Joja that spoils is absolutely the definition of a 3 of card. It can function as an extra combo piece but can't really function as both combo pieces. If I was to run 4 I'd also run 8 temples to be more likely to have a scry effect. One way to utilize multiple spoils is to simply use it to draw a known card of the top in order to dig one card deeper. I just don't see any advantage to a 4th spoils. I'd rather have a one of mystical teachings than a 4th spoils. Pact of negation is such a broken card in our deck. I don't buy the argument that since blue/control is weak in the meta that we should go down a pact. I've won countless games pacting a card the turn before a combo. Stopping a game winning atarka's command from burn or a top decked thoughtseize from jund or a well timed blood moon to shut off our mana the turn before going off is such a powerful play especially considering that the play is for zero mana. Yes we board it out for more specific answers in matches where it's not as good but 90% of the time I still leave one in.
UBWAd NauseamWBU
URStormRU
EDH:
BMikaeus the UnhallowedB
RWAurelia, the WarleaderWR
Beat:
Beat Abzan 2-0
Beat Burn 2-0
Lost Mardu Nahiri 1-2
Beat Eldrazi Tron 2-0
I really liked the maindeck. Mystical Teachings overperformed. Sideboard felt weak. I never boarded in Path to Exile. Elspeth, Sun's Champion seemed like a good card in theory, but wasn't great against my Mardu Nahiri opponent's Kalitas and Lingering Souls tokens, if it had been a Grave Titan I would have won.
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Simian Spirit Guide
Instans (23)
4 Angel's Grace
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Peer through Depths
2 Pact of Negation
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Spoils of the Vault
1 Lightning Storm
4 Lotus Bloom
4 Pentad Prism
Enchantments (3)
3 Phyrexian Unlife
Lands (21)
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
2 City of Brass
1 Island
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Path to Exile
1 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Echoing Truth
1 Wear//Tear
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
1 Collective Brutality
The mana is a bit wonky. I didn't have time to retool it into a proper 21 land version, but I had no problems casting spells or drawing enough lands.
The painful truths comes in as necessary card advantage in the Jund/GBx match or decks with heavy discard. Obviously with our manabase it is very easy to hit the full three colors.
I would have to find the exact post on this thread, but after playing the Wish deck for a few months early this year I found that I hated having sideboard bullets of 6 mana or more. Even the five mana for Sigarda is a stretch, but she's so good in the Jund matchup (or any Liliana deck) that it's hard to say no to her. The problem with 6+ mana spells is that in order to cast them in a reasonable time we have to use up some of our artifact/fast mana. That sets our mana production back far enough that it can eliminate our ability to combo off as a result. That means the 6 mana spells we cast have to win us the game. Dromoka can definitely sometimes do this, but without hexproof she can just as easily die to a removal spell without impacting the board.
Her ability to protect our combo on our turn is useless if we can't actually cast Ad Nauseam because we used up a prism and Simian Spirit Guide just to get her down and no longer have enough mana to go off. I was running into that problem enough with expensive sideboard cards in the Wish deck that I cut them and have not looked back. To be clear, I'm just now getting back into the deck after being away from the game/playing other decks for a while. But those experiences shaped my sideboard decisions as I begin testing with the deck again.
When we play against the discard heavy decks (jund, junk, grixis, BW tokens etc), we sideboard in the 4 Leylines.
How aggressively do you mull for them? Does it affect your mull knowing the white discard decks also board in stony and the red ones might have slaughter games? How about the decks with Liliana?
I am not talking about mulling a ***** 7 with no leyline. That is automatic. I am talking mulling great 7s and 6s without Leyline trying to get 5 with a leyline.
Have discussed this with a local and fellow Ad Nauseam player and we defo do not agree.
I would pretty much almost mull a 7 with no leyline against BGx. It is irrelevant how good your hand is since post-board they have probably around 10 targetted discard (thoughtseize/inqui/brutality). 7-cards Hands I would consider keeping is no combo pieces with cantrips and scry lands, as they won't be able to discard your combo pieces, but if you managed to maintain all the combo pieces in the library, then your chance of recovering are OK.
It is important to see how back breaking leyline of sanctity is for Jund (less for abzan as they run white enchantment hates, but still).
I have lost plenty of games to BGx. I feel like getting 5 cards where leyline is one almost has to be the perfect remaining 4 as we basically lose to a simgle abrupt decay targetting our mana or unlife. Even a leyline just means liliana t3 is auto loss.
Jund is better than junk, as junk has discard, abrupt decay/maelstrom pulse and stony silence post board.
The hands i keep is mana (lotus pref), lands and cantrips to accelerate me into a value ad nauseam or a lucky combo turn.
I think if you're running grave titan--I keep whatever hands look decent because you can just ramp and topdeck your way into a titan or hope they fall a little short on disruption and combo naturally. If you don't have a leyline, I aim for redundant hands with as many combo pieces as possible and try to not scry/cantrip away additional combo pieces. Nothing feels worse than scrying away an ad nauseam (because you want a land), only to have the maelstrom pulse hit your leyline and then be followed up by a seize for your AN.
That being said--wish there was an additional one or two cards with a larger impact than grave titan (cheaper really would be better) or leyline.
Defo thoughtseize.
I tried running duress, but it doesnt hit infect creatures, geists, spellquellers etc.