MTG Salvation

Kim made it to the semis, but lost there against Living End. Still an amazing showing, top four!

And he losses to Living End in the Semi-Finals. He never saw a mill rock, a bridge, or an Ancient Stirrings to help him find them in game 3

This was his deck for those curious:

Quote from DapperDane »

He is currently ranking #1!

I was attending the same GP. Went 5-2-2 (17 points, so 1 point short of going day 2 :sweat:)

I will come with a short tournament report later today.

Looking forward to your report!

So the Top 4 Lantern list was running 4 Leyline of Sanctity in the mainboard. Was it just a good metagame call or has Modern as a format moved in a direction where 3-4 Leyline main are probably a good idea?

So I am making this post so I don't forget this light bulb moment.

On Friday I played against the Counters Company deck and though to myself how having Pyroclasm in my 75 would have greatly helped me win the round. Upon further thought, Kozilek's Return is so much better since it having devoid means we can grab it with Ancient Stirrings and it gets around the sideboard Burrenton Forge-Tender.

Yeah I can definitely see the benefits behind the Leylines, my issues are with what is cut for them to be mainboard. For example there was no Infernal Tutor in Kim's Top 8 list from Copenhagen.

Streamed another league today, you can find the replay here: https://youtu.be/D9rwMDMluMw

I have lately become obsessed with this deck strategy and just bought it off amazon today! Can't wait until the cards come in the mail Will post results of tournaments when the deck is ready!

Quote from zcowan »

I have lately become obsessed with this deck strategy and just bought it off amazon today! Can't wait until the cards come in the mail Will post results of tournaments when the deck is ready!

Welcome to the fold Lantern has a lot more resources besides the forums, I have some listed in my signature.

2-2 Friday. Beat a really bad RG wolves deck 1-0 (he scooped the round after game 1), lost to my brother who was on Revolt Zoo (1-2), beat GW Tron in 2 very very lucky games, then lost to my fiance who was on Eldrazi Taxes. My brother ended up 4-0 and 1st place, fiance was 3-1 for 4th. I need to get better at taking match notes so I can do better write ups.

Quote from Skitzafreak »

So I am making this post so I don't forget this light bulb moment.

On Friday I played against the Counters Company deck and though to myself how having Pyroclasm in my 75 would have greatly helped me win the round. Upon further thought, Kozilek's Return is so much better since it having devoid means we can grab it with Ancient Stirrings and it gets around the sideboard Burrenton Forge-Tender.

And it's instant speed!

Quote from the_falsehate »

Quote from Skitzafreak »

So I am making this post so I don't forget this light bulb moment.

On Friday I played against the Counters Company deck and though to myself how having Pyroclasm in my 75 would have greatly helped me win the round. Upon further thought, Kozilek's Return is so much better since it having devoid means we can grab it with Ancient Stirrings and it gets around the sideboard Burrenton Forge-Tender.

And it's instant speed!

Not that I've tested it but, I dunno. When they're on the play, Vizier Company can and will combo off and kill you on their T3 -- you'll never get a chance to cast KR before then. The one mana difference with Pyroclasm is huge here.

Quote from DapperDane »

EDIT: Corrected

G2: Super grindy game! I start the game with a leyline in play, he played a mishra’s bauble and passed. I played an IoK and found a hand containing Liliana of the Veil, 2 x Liliana, the Last Hope, IoK and lingering souls. The card I cared about the most was Liliana, the Last Hope but he had two of those. Therefore I ended up picking Liliana of the Veil. He plays Last Hope and there is a Kataki on top. He ticks her up so I felt forced to sac my lantern. A few turns down the line he plays a Traverse and gets the Kataki anyway (*sad face*). I do not have an answer for kataki in hand (boarded out Brutalities and boarded in Seal of Primordium since I was expecting Stony Silence and not Kataki). I had bridge, codex shredder, needle on last hope, a welding jar and some lands. I had not lost yet so I decided that my best plan waas to go to town with my codex shredder; so end of turn mill opponent, untap pay for kataki play what I drew, pass the turn and repeat. Down the line, I picked up two extra shredders to speed up my “clock”. He abrupt decayed my bridge and I saved it with jar (this freed up a mana). At one point, I forgot to pay for kataki and realizes this just after I drew my card. (f**k… I thought I lost the game there). We called a judge to figure out what was going to happen. The ruling was that I missed a trigger so I got a warning. Then my opponent got the choice of putting the triggers on the stack or not. He chose to do so, I payed, and that was that! I can’t believe I was not punished more, but I did not want to question the ruling!

I kept on slow-milling, he got a travers into Reclamation Sage but I had drawn another welding jar, and in the end he had no more cards in his library and I won. What a game!

I think that is an incorrect ruling because there is a default on that trigger. Similar to the trigger on the Pacts. You are lucky your opponent did not appeal the ruling.

Quote from DocNicka »

Im finding ok against the old coco decks with the new combo. Its a bit more difficult than it used to be, but im.not unconfortable.
The one im finding myself in a really bad spot is the version with 4 eternal witness.
That one is supper supper hard...

G1 is easy as they don't usually have an answer to our Pithing Needles. Although you might encounter meta players with a singleton Qasali Pridemage or Caustic Caterpillar.

G2 is way harder. They usually side out Kitchen Finks and Viscera Seer so that's one less target for Pithing Needle. Prioritize Pithing Needle over Grafdigger's Cage when keeping your hand as Coco doesn't happen early. Be wary of a lot of hate cards: Kataki, War's Wage, Qasali Pridemage, Caustic Caterpillar and Reclamation Sage. If you have Pyroclasm or Kozilek's Return they bring in Selfless Spirit or Burrenton Forge-Tender.

I think Night of Soul's Betrayal is a good sideboard card if your meta has a lot of this new Abzan CoCo deck.

So....do we run this? The downside doesn't hurt us that much because our cards are so cheap and an unconditional board clear seems insane.

EDIT: Just pointing out this is unconfirmed at the moment, but I am confident it is a legitimate new card.

I think this card is definitely worth a sideboard slot or two. Might even be worth running in the main. I really like it. The downside of the card doesn't hurt us as bad as other type of control decks. For one we have opal but for two we just want options. This fixes those hyper-aggro matchups to be more in our favor. This includes Elves, Affinity, Merfolk, Zoo variants, and even stuff like Infect. Basically where Pyroclasm was good, this is just as good if not better.

I think one of the things I really like about Bontu's Last Reckoning is that it's black. Albeit double black, but still it being one of the main 2 colours of our deck is huge. It makes it so that we shouldn't too often encounter problems where we can't cast it. I know with running Pyroclasm as a sideboard card for hyper aggro is I've had some awkward draws where I don't get any of out 10 sources of multi-colour mana production and I can never cast the card :\

Welcome to the Forums. Great job on the video!

I just have one minor correction I'd like to make to your sideboard suggestions for the Azorious Control match up. I recommend against taking out Abrupt Decay because it helps you deal with Stony Silence. You guys even mention that it's one of the big cards you need to worry about, yet you're boarding out a removal spell for Silence that the control deck can't counter. I honestly don't think you need the Crucible of Worlds or the Nature's Claim (in fact my list isn't running Claim at the moment). Abrupt deck is also good against Detention Sphere, Gideon of the Trials(yes I have seen UW Control decks running this, his emblem is super annoying), and Snapcaster Mage. Snapcast is annoying because sometimes you just never get one of your remaining bridges and you just die to being attacked for 2 for 10 turns.

Other than that it was a good video. Keep up the good work

So I want some help doing preparation for a Modern Open I'm going to next Saturday (a week tomorrow). The events average over a hundred players and I want to do well for once so I'm trying to plan out proper sideboarding. I want people's opinion's on whether they think my sideboard plans are correct or not. The list I'll be running is basically the list Kim Ströh took to a 3rd place finish at GP Copenhagen with one minor change to the sideboard:

-1 Nihil Spellbomb
-1 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Kozilek's Return

I've made this change right now because I couldn't find myself the Spellbomb or 2nd Aether Grid before a small weekly Modern event I played the other day and I wanted a way to clear creatures off the board. It ended up working extremely well against the Counters Company deck, though I ended up losing to my opponent randomly boarding in Selfless Spirit. His argument was that it was better in his deck than Voice of Resurgence and that's why he had initially boarded it in, but it ended up working really well for him. Anyway I may look at getting the Spellbomb and going down to 1 Return, but we'll see. I am happy with the setup at the moment. Anyway for those not familiar with Ströh's list, this is what I will be running:



So here is what I am thinking for sideboard plans:

BURN

OUT:
-2 Pithing Needle
-1 Surgical Extraction
-2 Thoughtseize
IN:
+1 Abrupt Decay
+1 Collective Brutality
+1 Spellskite
+2 Welding Jar

Obviously the Spellskite and the Jars come in to protect against Destructive Revelry. Spellskite also pulls double duty since it can redirect Lightning Bolts and our opponent will most likely have boarded out all their Searing Blazes. I definitely want a 3rd Brutality since it is an amazing card against Burn, and Decay helps as another removal spell since we really need to kill Eidolon of the Great Revel.

As for what I'm taking out the only thing I can really name with Needle are fetch lands and Grim Lavamancer which honestly aren't enough targets to warrant keeping them in. Thoughtseize is horrendous since everything in the burn deck is dealt with via our other non-damaging burn spells. And among all the other cards I think cutting 1 Surgical is fine to let us get the 5th card in. If I wasn't cutting the Surgical I wouldn't be bringing in the 3rd Abrupt Decay and I think the 3rd Decay is better than the 2nd Extraction.


Grixis Death's Shadow

Out:
-2 Collective Brutality
-2 Abrupt Decay
-1 Pithing Needle
IN:
+1 Spellskite
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Welding Jar

Again the Spellskite and jars come in to protect our Bridges and such, this time from Kolaghan's Command. Grafdigger's Cage helps a lot in the matchup because of the Snapcaster Mages. We don't really need anything else against this deck as the mainboard Leylines help a lot.

As for what I'm removing, Decay is really bad against a deck running a lot of Delve fattiest like Grixis Shadow is. Additionally Brutality is pretty poor here, with every mode on it seeming incredibly lackluster or just bad. I don't want to touch the Extractions because of the aforementioned Snapcaster, but I don't want to remove all my Pithing Needles because sometimes you just want to turn off a Tasigur, the Golden Fang.

Gifts Storm

Out:
-2 Abrupt Decay
-2 Ensnaring Bridge
-2 Pithing Needle
IN:
+1 Collective Brutality
+1 Spellskite
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Welding Jar

I don't think I need to explain the Spellskite of Jars anymore As for the other 3 card Grafdigger's Cage helps to turn off Past in Flames and the 3rd Brutality helps kill Goblin Electromancers while also helping discard key combo pieces.

You take out 2 Bridges because they aren't really trying to attack you so you don't need the full playset. However you want to keep some in on the chance they decide to go in on the Empty the Warrens plan to get around your Leylines. Pithing Needle names basically nothing so it's out, and since the storm decks aren't running Pyromancer Ascension anymore you don't exactly need the Abrupt Decays.

Dredge

OUT:
-4 Leyline of Sanctity
-2 Abrupt Decay
IN:
+1 Spellskite
+1 Ghirapur Æther Grid
+2 Grafdigger's Cage
+2 Welding Jar

This match up, I feel I'd want that Nihil Spellbomb instead of the Kozilek's Return. This is one of two match ups where this thought rings true, the other is the match up listed after this one. Cage is good against Dredge because well....it's Cage against Dredge lol. And finally I like Æther Grid against Dredge because they have a lot of one toughness creatures. Honestly Prized Amalgam is about the only creature the deck runs that has 3 or more toughness so Grid should be able to snipe down a lot of creatures if you don't have a bridge in play.

The Leylines don't do much of anything in this match up. Sure they can stop a Conflagrate but with any luck you either have a Cage in play or your Extracted them so it doesn't matter. And Decay sucks because you'd just be removing their recursive threats, which doesn't help much. The reason you keep the discard however is because disrupting them early by making them get rid of Faithless Looting or Cathartic Reunion slows them down a LOT.

Living End

OUT:
-4 Leyline of Sanctity
-2 Abrupt Decay
IN:
+1 Collective Brutality
+1 Spellskite
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Welding Jar

This is the other match up where I'd obviously want that Nihil Spellbomb, for obvious reasons. Unfortunately Cage does nothing against Living End so we don't really bother bringing it in. Going up to 4 Needles lets us turn off a bunch of their Cyclers (Yes, cycling is an activated ability you can Needle for those of you who didn't know) which should hopefully slow them down a lot. Adding another Brutality is to have additional cards to help get rid of their Cascade spells, and it's also a great way to see their hand so we know which cycle cards to name with Needles.

Again Leyline does nothing in this match up so we get rid of it. And there is I think literally nothing we can target with Abrupt Decay so we get rid of them as well.

I think this match up would be hurt the most be not having the Spellbomb in the sideboard. I'm not sure how big of a deck it is in the meta at the moment however.

Eldrazi Tron

OUT:
-3 Inquisition of Kozilek
-2 Collective Brutality
IN:
+1 Crucible of Worlds
+2 Seal of Primordium
+2 Pithing Needle

I think this is one of the very few match ups where you don't need to actually bring in Welding Jar. They remove Jar through Karn Liberated, and Ratchet Bomb. Our plan in this match up is to Pithing Needle the threats our opponent starts the game with, and keep them off of drawing any of these other ones. Crucible comes in because we want to be recurring our Ghost Quarters to use against the Urza Tron Lands. If we get lucky and destroy or mill a tron land and Surgical it we're in business to potentially win the game. Finally the Seals are in because Chalice of the Void on 1 NEEDS to be dealt with. If we draw an early Abrupt Decay to deal with Chalice that's fine sicne Seal does have a lot of other targets like Ratchet Bomb or early Expedition Maps

I don't like to take out Leyline against this deck because just by it being in play it shuts down Walking Ballista and Endbringer as win conditions. Additionally Leyline slows down Karn since they can't tick up their colourless planeswalker until they minus him to exile the Leyline first. This can give us some extra time to find a Needle. Most of our discard is horrendous in this match up, with the only really good one being Thoughtseize. Collective Brutality hits...All is Dust or Dismember, both cards we don't care about. And Inquisition can maybe hit an early Chalice, but I think it more often misses hitting anything so it isn't worth having.




So those are the main decks I am expecting to play against. How do my sideboard plans look? Would you make any suggestions for how I could do some things differently? If so what would you do differently? Thanks for any of the help

So it was mentioned sort of already however, what is everyone's opinion on running a one of Crucible of Worlds in the mainboard? I feel like it definitely adds worth since it turns on all lands milled off of Ghoulcaller's bell, and also allows for repeated mana disruption through Ghostly Quarters..?

Haven't actually started playing the deck but have been doing my homework haha