I need help with my abzan, I recently finished it and not played it yet.
My list is based on the Top 8 GP Sao Paulo.
My biggest doubts: The mana base and Painful Truths.
My Meta:
Grixis Shadow
Valakut (oh yeah, it's terrible)
Burn
Coloress Eldrazi and bant eldrazi
Jund
Affinity
Merfolk
Cut Concealed Courtyard. Painful Truths is dead in a lot of matchups, it's a sideboard card for the midrange grind, but you have plenty of other good options there like Gideon.
Golgari Charm kills your Souls, if you want that -1/-1 sweeper effect I'd run Zealous Persecution instead.
Hi guys
Do you think it's better to play bob or grim flayer in the actual version of junk (2 rhino 2 ooze 2 tracker 4 tarmo 3 bob/flayer)?
I was just going to bring this up. I don't know the answer, but what I can say is that some of the most recent successful online decks have been on Grim Flayer over Bob, which is interesting to me because these same lists have cut the main deck artifacts (Bauble/Spellbomb) that the pros have said are necessary to run Flayer.
To start, MTGO user Falleaf won last weekend's modern MOCS with the following Abzan list:
Three days later, MTGO user Jaberwocki ran the same list, card-for-card to a 5-0 finish in a daily competitive event.
Today, the only Abzan lists to place in the MTGO Modern challenge (18th and 19th place lists) were identical main deck, with the 19th place list running a slightly different sideboard.
So it seems like the tide has shifted (online at least) back to running Grim Flayer over Dark Confidant in the main. I have been running 4 Dark Confidant in the main deck of my lists, and really loving him. But, both Grim Flayer and Tireless Tracker are great sources of card advantage, too.
I'm going to go ahead and sleeve up this list to see how it feels at my locals.
It might be a meta call related to burn? The more burn floating around, the less you want dark confidant in your deck.
I think what's really happening is that we're playing a goodstuff midrange deck and it isn't clear which card provides more value right now, so we see lists succeeding with various permutations of both cards. Ideally we would decide that one is the superior option and go all in on it, but there's clearly no consensus on that right now. Until then I'm running a 4/2 Bob/Flayer split until I feel out which is more valuable (my gut tells me it's Bob but we'll see).
It might be a meta call related to burn? The more burn floating around, the less you want dark confidant in your deck.
I think what's really happening is that we're playing a goodstuff midrange deck and it isn't clear which card provides more value right now, so we see lists succeeding with various permutations of both cards. Ideally we would decide that one is the superior option and go all in on it, but there's clearly no consensus on that right now. Until then I'm running a 4/2 Bob/Flayer split until I feel out which is more valuable (my gut tells me it's Bob but we'll see).
I have noticed that change and have sleeved up the same list but with a slight variation: -2 lotv, +1 ltlh, +1 dark confidant.
In light that the rock is climbing in popularity I happened to test with a few mirror matches that fielded 4 dark confidants, and somehow win most but so very just.
Testing against mono red, boros, and especially naya burn (with atk-command), yes it was very successful.
To test: eldrazitron (have deck) and affinity (have an eager tester).
Question: Sideboard Rune Halo: what do you all usually name in the following matchups: mirror, burn, eldrazitron, affinity?
I don't want to play runed halo vs mirror : bgx has a lot of removal to answer it (pulse, decay) + discard
vs burn name shrine or eidolon
vs affinity i think it's better to name etched champion cause this is the only creature that is difficult to remove
Copter is a dead card most of the time and a terrible topdeck on an empty board. Do you really want it contending with better cards for two 3-drop spots?
By allowing you to "see" more cards per turn, Grim Flayer acts as a source of virtual card advantage. He lets you dig deeper in your library, and thus find the card you need for that particular matchup or situation.
It's not card advantage. It's virtual card advantage. I think it's hard to argue that Scry 3 is not a form of virtual card advantage. When he connects, Grim Flayer is Scry 3 with upside (for our deck).
On that topic, the 3 Grim Flayer, no Dark Confidant build continues to do well on MTGO.
I really like the move from Confidants to Flayer/Tracker. It pushes Abzan to be just a little "bigger", which helps give it an edge against other midrange strategies, while still giving it filtering to help with some of the tougher, sideboard-dependent matchups like Valakut. Up until two weeks ago I'd been on Abzan with Confidants for a month or two, and it always felt like I was drawing tons of cards, but they were never the right ones. I think that, because Abzan's cards are less versatile than Jund's, drawing specific cards matters more than just drawing a lot of them. Path and Fatal Push are both premiere removal spells, but unlike Bolt they don't do anything except remove creatures. At least, that's how I felt about Flayer when I was running it.
"Card selection". Or "filtering". Card advantage is how many cards you are ahead of your opponent, hand, and board collectively. Grim Flayer does dump cards in our bin, but since we have no way to retrieve them, it kinda blanks. Unless those cards are Lingering Souls or have an active Last Hope out, otherwise, no card advantage is granted.
I cut the Kitchen Finks because I think at two copies it wouldn't consistently show up enough for what I wanted it to do, which is be an early game lifegainer/blocker and I was struggling to add a third. I essentially split the slots into a third Ooze, and a second Liliana, the Last Hope. I really like having six Lillys for Goyf, and this Liliana can do a great Eternal Witness impression if the game goes long. With the new planeswalker rules coming up, I feel it's safe to do this.
Aside from that, I have a single Engineered Explosives in the board to be a sometimes-third Flaying Tendrils and also an artifact board wipe, because I know my pure artifact destruction is low. I hope the EE and the last Abrupt Decay will make up for it.
Cut Concealed Courtyard. Painful Truths is dead in a lot of matchups, it's a sideboard card for the midrange grind, but you have plenty of other good options there like Gideon.
Golgari Charm kills your Souls, if you want that -1/-1 sweeper effect I'd run Zealous Persecution instead.
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Do you think it's better to play bob or grim flayer in the actual version of junk (2 rhino 2 ooze 2 tracker 4 tarmo 3 bob/flayer)?
I was just going to bring this up. I don't know the answer, but what I can say is that some of the most recent successful online decks have been on Grim Flayer over Bob, which is interesting to me because these same lists have cut the main deck artifacts (Bauble/Spellbomb) that the pros have said are necessary to run Flayer.
To start, MTGO user Falleaf won last weekend's modern MOCS with the following Abzan list:
3 Grim Flayer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Siege Rhino
4 Tarmogoyf
2 Tireless Tracker
Spells:
4 Liliana of the Veil
1 Collective Brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
1 Maelstrom Pulse
3 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
3 Fatal Push
3 Path to Exile
3 Blooming Marsh
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
3 Marsh Flats
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Plains
2 Shambling Vent
1 Stirring Wildwood
2 Swamp
1 Temple Garden
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Windswept Heath
1 Collective Brutality
1 Maelstrom Pulse
1 Damnation
1 Flaying Tendrils
3 Fulminator Mage
1 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Runed Halo
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
Three days later, MTGO user Jaberwocki ran the same list, card-for-card to a 5-0 finish in a daily competitive event.
Today, the only Abzan lists to place in the MTGO Modern challenge (18th and 19th place lists) were identical main deck, with the 19th place list running a slightly different sideboard.
So it seems like the tide has shifted (online at least) back to running Grim Flayer over Dark Confidant in the main. I have been running 4 Dark Confidant in the main deck of my lists, and really loving him. But, both Grim Flayer and Tireless Tracker are great sources of card advantage, too.
I'm going to go ahead and sleeve up this list to see how it feels at my locals.
I think what's really happening is that we're playing a goodstuff midrange deck and it isn't clear which card provides more value right now, so we see lists succeeding with various permutations of both cards. Ideally we would decide that one is the superior option and go all in on it, but there's clearly no consensus on that right now. Until then I'm running a 4/2 Bob/Flayer split until I feel out which is more valuable (my gut tells me it's Bob but we'll see).
I have noticed that change and have sleeved up the same list but with a slight variation: -2 lotv, +1 ltlh, +1 dark confidant.
In light that the rock is climbing in popularity I happened to test with a few mirror matches that fielded 4 dark confidants, and somehow win most but so very just.
Testing against mono red, boros, and especially naya burn (with atk-command), yes it was very successful.
To test: eldrazitron (have deck) and affinity (have an eager tester).
Question: Sideboard Rune Halo: what do you all usually name in the following matchups: mirror, burn, eldrazitron, affinity?
vs burn name shrine or eidolon
vs affinity i think it's better to name etched champion cause this is the only creature that is difficult to remove
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
Thanks!
Doesn't Grafdigger's Cage stop Nahiri's ultimate?
... How is Grim Flayer card advantage?
Abzan Traverse / Traverse Shadow / UR Kiki
On that topic, the 3 Grim Flayer, no Dark Confidant build continues to do well on MTGO.
Pilot Tw33Ty went 8-1 in this weekend's Modern PTQ, after a 5-2 finish the day before in the Modern Challenge. Falleaf, who won last weekend's MOCS with the deck, scored another 5-0 run in a competitive league this week.
I'm looking to start to get into BGx, specifically BG Rock. I was hoping you'd be able to critique my initial build for me.
3x Overgrown Tomb
1x Forest
2x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
2x Marsh Flats
4x Blooming Marsh
3x Hissing Quagmire
1x Twilight Mire
3x Ghost Quarter
Creatures
4x Tarmogoyf
4x Dark Confidant
3x Tireless Tracker
3x Scavenging Ooze
2x Eternal Witness
2x Liliana, the Last Hope
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
2x Thoughtseize
4x Fatal Push
3x Abrupt Decay
2x Maelstrom Pulse
3x Leyline of the Void
3x Fulminator Mage
3x Collective Brutality
2x Flaying Tendrils
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Natural State
1x Abrupt Decay
I cut the Kitchen Finks because I think at two copies it wouldn't consistently show up enough for what I wanted it to do, which is be an early game lifegainer/blocker and I was struggling to add a third. I essentially split the slots into a third Ooze, and a second Liliana, the Last Hope. I really like having six Lillys for Goyf, and this Liliana can do a great Eternal Witness impression if the game goes long. With the new planeswalker rules coming up, I feel it's safe to do this.
Aside from that, I have a single Engineered Explosives in the board to be a sometimes-third Flaying Tendrils and also an artifact board wipe, because I know my pure artifact destruction is low. I hope the EE and the last Abrupt Decay will make up for it.
Mardu Burn
Monogreen Stompy
Legacy
Burn
Pauper
Dimir Flicker
Monowhite Tokens