I think Creeping Tar Pit is a great addition to the deck : it adds a blocker and has a great synergy with Tolaria West against slower matchups were beating down is the way to go. Like in my last tournament, I shot Lightning Storm with 3 lands and started beating down with Creeping Tar Pit to finish the game. It's a tech, and I love them.
Snapcaster Mage is really good. It gives a blocker, can be an extra copy of whatever you want to flashback and also works in conjunction with Mystical Teachings. Great all around card, but I wont keep it in the sideboard.
The rest was for testing purpose, but after the tournament, I might settle for the following list :
In my opinion Desperate Ritual is very bad. It's only bonus it's tutorable from Mystical Teachings and enable playou Conflagrate if we use 2 Simians (rare situaton and to be honest Conflagrate is very bad wincon, Laboratory Maniac is much much better). But Ritual has a lot of disadvantages:
1. It can't ramp us to play Phyrexian Unlife from 2 lands. With Simian we can produce R and different colors from lands, with desperate only useless RRR
2. You can't play it without access to redo mana from rainbow lands or Pentad Prism. Simian doesn't have that kind of restriction.
3. Simian doesn't require mana to activate, it can be useful against Cursecatcher effects.
4. Simian it's mana ability, we won't give opponent chance to respond, Desperate Ritual gives this window.
5. With tax effect (for example Thalia) simian is +1 mana, ritual is +0.
6. Simian has side effect being a blocker, Desperate is only a bad ramp.
7. Enable opponent's Spell Snare to be good.
Please, just play 4 Simian Spirit Guides.
Eldrazi & Taxes is hard, it really has too much hate vs us, stony silence, thalia v1 & v2 and ghost quarter, do you side Leyline of Sanctity against him ?
I think change the 2 Grave Titan for 2 Torpor Orb / or 2 spellskite, I don't know yet...
I have been doing some testing against infect and while it feels like a bad matchup, it also feels like we are one card away from making the matchup even. What I mean by this is, it seems like we can win if we play well and utilize spoils of the vault to dig for sideboard answers and pact of negations to prevent them from having lethal, but it often feels like we run out of resources trying to do this. I win 40% of games against infect, it feels like with the right sideboard card, I could make this matchup winnable. I have tried multiple different combinations of sideboard cards against infect so far.
As for my sideboard plan, I always remove phyrexian unlife, as the card is too slow in this matchup and sleight of hands/pentad prisms depending on how many cards planned on testing.
Ethereal Haze/Darkness: This is a powerful card in the matchup, as it is one of the few options we have that both counters a pump spell and prevents combat damage. One of our only options for punishing a greedy infect play. This card also has utility in most aggro matchups, making it an ideal sideboard card. This card has two weaknesses, any counterspell, and the fact that this card only stalls a turn; meaning you are reliant on getting the turn 4 combo if you play this card alone.
Collective Brutality: This is an interesting card with a few limitations. Being able to remove either a creature + pump spell or two pump spells from the opponent is a strong play, but the card has a few weaknesses. First, it is especially susceptible to counterspells, if they use a spell pierce on this, you lose two cards for little value. Second, this card does very little against an ink moth nexus, at most, you can remove a pump spell with it. Third, I often find that I often run out of cards when using Collective Brutality, suggesting to me that while it is effective at stalling infect, it feels like we don't have the draw power to recover from it. Still, it feels like the matches I played this card in were "worst scenario" situations, either with turn 2 combos or turn 3 combos with double counterspell protection and because of that, I should test this card more.
Pact of Negation: I find that three copies of this card is ideal against infect, while four copies makes draws too clunky. This card is most useful the turn before you combo off against infect as you will always be able to angel's grace safely doing so. Using this card
Spoils of the Vault: I consider this the best card we have in the matchup, it's the reason I don't think infect is as unwinnable as people say. Because Infect doesn't use life total, this effectively acts as a tutor for any card in the deck. This should be used very aggressively to either find sideboard cards, combo pieces, or pact of negations. We very likely lose if we don't use this to tutor, so the small risk of losing the game off of it is worth it.
Here is a list of sideboard combinations I have tried and their winrates:
I am still testing sideboard cards and variants of the list against infect. My current winrate against infect is 40%, with the most successful sideboard list (+3 Ethereal Haze, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Slaughter Pact, -4 Phyrexian Unlife, -1 Pentad Prism, -1 Sleight of Hand) having a 60% winrate. Still, I believe I need to play more games before I can say anything conclusive about the success of the list. Some cards I want to test out next are: spellskite, blessed alliance, and condescend in place of sleight of hands. I mentioned earlier that I believed that Ad Nauseam was one card away from having a winnable infect matchup, the following are possible cards that could do that:
Preordain Unban: I find one of the biggest problems in the infect matchup to be the fact that we can't consistently get sideboard hate or combo pieces out fast enough. While spoils of the vault is helpful in giving us consistency, having a much stronger cantrip would significantly increase the chances of getting relevant sideboard hate out quickly or the combo.
Fatal Push: This might be more of a stretch, but having access to strong removal could make our infect matchup in conjunction with fog effects could make the infect matchup even. If even some ad nauseam lists play this card, it will force infect players to play more cautiously against all ad nauseam lists, increasingly the likelihood that we can make it to turn 4.
Was talking this over with a few friends, and I think the combination of printing of Fatal Push and the banning of Gitaxian Probe slows Modern down by at least a turn. The decks that most had to fear Fatal Push won by going all in on a creature early. After the printing of Push, the only way for them to see if the coast was clear was Gitaxian Probe. New versions could crop up running Inquisition to do a probe impression, but that'll still slow them down by a turn because of the need to use real mana.
What does that all mean? Ad Nauseam just became one of the best decks in Modern. In a true turn 4 format, we're the most consistent fast combo deck left. I do expect an increase in BG Midrange and UBx control decks, but the knocking down of infect I think more than makes up for that in our metagame positioning.
I'm not at all worried about an increase in control decks, but it is definitely time to tune sideboard to beat Liliana and discard.
Well the bannings didn't hit Ad Nauseam at all which makes me super happy after half foiling it recently!
So sad about Gitaxian Probes as my second deck was Jeskai Ascension and selfish infect players ruined it
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When the task spilled over into undeath, he stopped calling it his life's work.
Decks
Standard: GBGB EnergyGB GRGR EnergyGR
Modern: RBUWAd NauseamRBUW GRGR TitanshiftGR UBLUE STEEEEEELU UR Storm U Turbo Turns
Rejoice, SSG is still our dear ape friend! But beware, we've become the most consistent combo deck in a true turn 4 format. RG Breach should remain a premium combo deck also, but for us, everything slows down for .5 turn to 1 turn I'd say. Now, Infect is becoming less prevalent, but not easier by any means. We'll just see it less often. However, we'll see more BG/x, which is better than Infect. So pack in 4 Leyline of Sanctity, 2 Thoughtseize, tech lands and Celestial Purge / Pure Intentions for BGx.
I have been doing some testing against infect and while it feels like a bad matchup, it also feels like we are one card away from making the matchup even. What I mean by this is, it seems like we can win if we play well and utilize spoils of the vault to dig for sideboard answers and pact of negations to prevent them from having lethal, but it often feels like we run out of resources trying to do this. I win 40% of games against infect, it feels like with the right sideboard card, I could make this matchup winnable. I have tried multiple different combinations of sideboard cards against infect so far.
It's not a huge sample size or against the highest levels of competition, but I'm currently (since I started keeping records) 6-5 against infect in Competitive Leagues on MTGO and Comp REL events in Paper. My list has had a few minor fluctuations, but this is essentially what I've been on:
Night of Soul's Betrayal is a huge haymaker against infect, and they typically aren't thinking about it or expecting to see it. Spellskite also usually buys 2-3 turns, which is all we need to set up a kill. The fogs are good for obvious reasons. With this plan, I always feel like Infect is a very close match overall, never a completely hopeless matchups where you have to hope they mulligan to 4 every game to have a chance. My only concern with this strategy is that it limits my SB space for other matchups, which I have been feeling pretty heavily on MTGO lately. With the B&R announcement slightly affecting Infect, I've been considering dropping something in order to squeeze more sideboard space, expecting that people will overreact and drop the deck since it got marginally weaker.
So what is the sideboard plan for this new modern since the B&R update? Any room for Fatal Push?
I'm putting in Grave Titans in anticipation of a Jund and Junk heavy meta. The only question is should I put in two copies or three copies?
Tron and scapeshift will be the most played decks. These decks are a very bad MU for BGx so i don't think the future meta will be BGx heavy. (also tron and valakut are good MU for us, it's a good new)
Just a reminder, Infect is not dead. Sure the loss of Probe has weaken a part of the deck, but this just gives them an excuse to run Blossoming Defense and Vines of Vastwood. Good infect players know that people are gonna be changing up sideboards in anticipation of a lack of infect and will use that to their advantage (Source: Friend who plays infect). Dredge losing GGT and slowing down by 1-2 turns is just great. The match up was never bad but this just makes them a turn or so too slow to deal with ad naus.
So what is the sideboard plan for this new modern since the B&R update? Any room for Fatal Push?
I'm putting in Grave Titans in anticipation of a Jund and Junk heavy meta. The only question is should I put in two copies or three copies?
Tron and scapeshift will be the most played decks. These decks are a very bad MU for BGx so i don't think the future meta will be BGx heavy. (also tron and valakut are good MU for us, it's a good new)
I agree tron/valakut will be good and that we don't really need to sideboard for them, but it is undoubtable that Jund/Junk will also be a lot stronger with Fatal Push, and they will still prey on unfair decks that will be used to beat tron/valakut.
@Dizdo : You don't side Leyline of Sanctity and Thoughtseize vs Valakut deck ?
This is what I do personally.
I side Thoughtseize vs Tron to protect from T3 karn.
I mean, we don't need to dedicate sideboard slots for either of those matchups. We don't run leyline for a better valakut matchup even if it is useful in the matchup.
Playing the desperate ritual instead of fourth monkeys sounds like a really dumb idea.
Of course in some specific situations it can be a bit better but overall, its 5 times worse.
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Desperate Ritual is great because you can use 1 of the 3 Simian Spirit Guide and still fire off Lightning Storm or Conflagrate. You can also use it with a rainbow land (i.e. City of Brass in my case) or a mana rock like Lotus Bloom
or Pentad Prism and add an extra mana when needed. So it's a good card.
Snapcaster Mage is really good. It gives a blocker, can be an extra copy of whatever you want to flashback and also works in conjunction with Mystical Teachings. Great all around card, but I wont keep it in the sideboard.
The rest was for testing purpose, but after the tournament, I might settle for the following list :
3 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
Lands (20)
2 Flooded Strand
2 City of Brass
2 Polluted Delta
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Island
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Plains
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Swamp
1 Tolaria West
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 Desperate Ritual
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Lightning Storm
1 Slaughter Pact
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ethereal Haze
2 Thoughtseize
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Echoing Truth
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
1. It can't ramp us to play Phyrexian Unlife from 2 lands. With Simian we can produce R and different colors from lands, with desperate only useless RRR
2. You can't play it without access to redo mana from rainbow lands or Pentad Prism. Simian doesn't have that kind of restriction.
3. Simian doesn't require mana to activate, it can be useful against Cursecatcher effects.
4. Simian it's mana ability, we won't give opponent chance to respond, Desperate Ritual gives this window.
5. With tax effect (for example Thalia) simian is +1 mana, ritual is +0.
6. Simian has side effect being a blocker, Desperate is only a bad ramp.
7. Enable opponent's Spell Snare to be good.
Please, just play 4 Simian Spirit Guides.
2-0 vs Boogles
2-0 vs Bant Eldrazi
1-2 vs Jund
2-0 vs RG Ponza
Draw vs Eldrazi & Taxes
Top 8 :
1-2 in 1/4 vs the same Eldrazi & Taxes
Classic list
3 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
1 Dreadship Reef
1 Plains
1 Island
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Phyrexian Unlife
4 Pentad Prism
4 Lotus Bloom
3 Spoils of the Vault
3 Pact of Negation
1 Peer Through Depths
1 Lightning Storm
4 Angel's Grace
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Serum Visions
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
3 Darkness
1 Echoing Truth
2 Grave Titan
1 Duress
4 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Slaughter Pact
1 Thoughtseize
1 Pact of Negation
I like the single Peer Through Depths over the 4th Phyrexian Unlife
Eldrazi & Taxes is hard, it really has too much hate vs us, stony silence, thalia v1 & v2 and ghost quarter, do you side Leyline of Sanctity against him ?
I think change the 2 Grave Titan for 2 Torpor Orb / or 2 spellskite, I don't know yet...
RG Titan Scapeshift GR
UBWAd Nauseam WBU
CEldrazi TronC
As for my sideboard plan, I always remove phyrexian unlife, as the card is too slow in this matchup and sleight of hands/pentad prisms depending on how many cards planned on testing.
Ethereal Haze/Darkness: This is a powerful card in the matchup, as it is one of the few options we have that both counters a pump spell and prevents combat damage. One of our only options for punishing a greedy infect play. This card also has utility in most aggro matchups, making it an ideal sideboard card. This card has two weaknesses, any counterspell, and the fact that this card only stalls a turn; meaning you are reliant on getting the turn 4 combo if you play this card alone.
Collective Brutality: This is an interesting card with a few limitations. Being able to remove either a creature + pump spell or two pump spells from the opponent is a strong play, but the card has a few weaknesses. First, it is especially susceptible to counterspells, if they use a spell pierce on this, you lose two cards for little value. Second, this card does very little against an ink moth nexus, at most, you can remove a pump spell with it. Third, I often find that I often run out of cards when using Collective Brutality, suggesting to me that while it is effective at stalling infect, it feels like we don't have the draw power to recover from it. Still, it feels like the matches I played this card in were "worst scenario" situations, either with turn 2 combos or turn 3 combos with double counterspell protection and because of that, I should test this card more.
Pact of Negation: I find that three copies of this card is ideal against infect, while four copies makes draws too clunky. This card is most useful the turn before you combo off against infect as you will always be able to angel's grace safely doing so. Using this card
Spoils of the Vault: I consider this the best card we have in the matchup, it's the reason I don't think infect is as unwinnable as people say. Because Infect doesn't use life total, this effectively acts as a tutor for any card in the deck. This should be used very aggressively to either find sideboard cards, combo pieces, or pact of negations. We very likely lose if we don't use this to tutor, so the small risk of losing the game off of it is worth it.
Here is a list of sideboard combinations I have tried and their winrates:
(+3 Collective Brutality, +3 Ethereal Haze, +1 Slaughter Pact, +1 Pact of Negation, -4 Phyrexian Unlife, -4 Sleight of Hands), 33% winrate.
(+4 Collective Brutality, +1 Slaughter Pact, +1 Pact of Negation, -4 Phyrexian Unlife, -1 Pentad Prism, -1 Sleight of Hands), 33% winrate.
(+3 Ethereal Haze, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Slaughter Pact, -4 Phyrexian Unlife, -1 Pentad Prism, -1 Sleight of Hands) 60% winrate.
I am still testing sideboard cards and variants of the list against infect. My current winrate against infect is 40%, with the most successful sideboard list (+3 Ethereal Haze, +2 Thoughtseize, +1 Slaughter Pact, -4 Phyrexian Unlife, -1 Pentad Prism, -1 Sleight of Hand) having a 60% winrate. Still, I believe I need to play more games before I can say anything conclusive about the success of the list. Some cards I want to test out next are: spellskite, blessed alliance, and condescend in place of sleight of hands. I mentioned earlier that I believed that Ad Nauseam was one card away from having a winnable infect matchup, the following are possible cards that could do that:
Preordain Unban: I find one of the biggest problems in the infect matchup to be the fact that we can't consistently get sideboard hate or combo pieces out fast enough. While spoils of the vault is helpful in giving us consistency, having a much stronger cantrip would significantly increase the chances of getting relevant sideboard hate out quickly or the combo.
Fatal Push: This might be more of a stretch, but having access to strong removal could make our infect matchup in conjunction with fog effects could make the infect matchup even. If even some ad nauseam lists play this card, it will force infect players to play more cautiously against all ad nauseam lists, increasingly the likelihood that we can make it to turn 4.
What does that all mean? Ad Nauseam just became one of the best decks in Modern. In a true turn 4 format, we're the most consistent fast combo deck left. I do expect an increase in BG Midrange and UBx control decks, but the knocking down of infect I think more than makes up for that in our metagame positioning.
I'm not at all worried about an increase in control decks, but it is definitely time to tune sideboard to beat Liliana and discard.
So sad about Gitaxian Probes as my second deck was Jeskai Ascension and selfish infect players ruined it
Decks
Standard:
GBGB EnergyGB
GRGR EnergyGR
Modern:
RBUWAd NauseamRBUW
GRGR TitanshiftGR
UBLUE STEEEEEELU
UR StormU Turbo TurnsDecks
Standard:
GBGB EnergyGB
GRGR EnergyGR
Modern:
RBUWAd NauseamRBUW
GRGR TitanshiftGR
UBLUE STEEEEEELU
UR StormU Turbo TurnsMy list for the new meta :
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
Lands (20)
2 Flooded Strand
2 City of Brass
2 Polluted Delta
2 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenment
2 Island
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Oboro, Palace in the Clouds
1 Plains
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Swamp
1 Tolaria West
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 Celestial Purge
1 Echoing Truth
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
It's not a huge sample size or against the highest levels of competition, but I'm currently (since I started keeping records) 6-5 against infect in Competitive Leagues on MTGO and Comp REL events in Paper. My list has had a few minor fluctuations, but this is essentially what I've been on:
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Darkslick Shores
3 Temple of Deceit
2 Temple of Enlightenments
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Island
1 Plains
Creatures
4 Simian Spirit Guide
1 Laboratory Maniac
4 Pentad Prism
4 Lotus Bloom
Enchantments
3 Phyrexian Unlife
Instants
1 Lightning Storm
4 Ad Nauseam
4 Angel's Grace
3 Spoils of the Vault
3 Pact of Negation
1 Slaughter Pact
Sorceries
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ethereal Haze
2 Thoughtseize
2 Spellskite
1 Night of Soul's Betrayal
1 Echoing Truth
1 Tolaria West
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
My Sideboard plan has typically been:
-3 Unlife, -1 Pact of Negation, -1 Prism, -1 Spoils
+ 3 Haze, +2 Spellskite, +1 NoSB
Night of Soul's Betrayal is a huge haymaker against infect, and they typically aren't thinking about it or expecting to see it. Spellskite also usually buys 2-3 turns, which is all we need to set up a kill. The fogs are good for obvious reasons. With this plan, I always feel like Infect is a very close match overall, never a completely hopeless matchups where you have to hope they mulligan to 4 every game to have a chance. My only concern with this strategy is that it limits my SB space for other matchups, which I have been feeling pretty heavily on MTGO lately. With the B&R announcement slightly affecting Infect, I've been considering dropping something in order to squeeze more sideboard space, expecting that people will overreact and drop the deck since it got marginally weaker.
I'm putting in Grave Titans in anticipation of a Jund and Junk heavy meta. The only question is should I put in two copies or three copies?
Decks
Standard:
GBGB EnergyGB
GRGR EnergyGR
Modern:
RBUWAd NauseamRBUW
GRGR TitanshiftGR
UBLUE STEEEEEELU
UR StormU Turbo TurnsTron and scapeshift will be the most played decks. These decks are a very bad MU for BGx so i don't think the future meta will be BGx heavy. (also tron and valakut are good MU for us, it's a good new)
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Ethereal Haze
2 Thoughtseize
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Echoing Truth
4 flex
You must have 4 Leyline of Sanctity for BG/x and 3 fogs (Darkness, Ethereal Haze and Hurkyl's Recall) for sure against aggro. 2 Thoughtseize is a must have against BG/x and Infect mostly. Boseiju Who Shelters All also for control matchups. 1 Echoing Truth for problematic permanents, so it leaves 4 slots. I like to have :
1 sweeper (Supreme Verdict).
1 Patrician's Scorn.
1 control card (Silence).
1 that always changes, so now it's Celestial Purge.
Cheers!
Aggro: Naya Burn RWG
Combo: Scapeshift RG
Control: Jeskai Control UWR
Legacy
Control: Miracles UW
Aggro: Burn R
I agree tron/valakut will be good and that we don't really need to sideboard for them, but it is undoubtable that Jund/Junk will also be a lot stronger with Fatal Push, and they will still prey on unfair decks that will be used to beat tron/valakut.
This is what I do personally.
I side Thoughtseize vs Tron to protect from T3 karn.
RG Titan Scapeshift GR
UBWAd Nauseam WBU
CEldrazi TronC
of course we side that vs them, but even without sideboard we are strongly favored, valakut matchup is nearly unlosable ^^
I mean, we don't need to dedicate sideboard slots for either of those matchups. We don't run leyline for a better valakut matchup even if it is useful in the matchup.
Of course in some specific situations it can be a bit better but overall, its 5 times worse.