Have to present a clock while killing their creatures on sight and prioritizing discard. Post SB bring in all my hate, kambals, eidolons, more discard, pretty much anything relevant and take out the slower stuff like moon, kcommands, souls, forked bolts.
Where are you guys at on the creature base? I'm not a huge fan of swiftspear. Is she necessary? What about some running 1-2 pack rat? It would let us discard late game land/dead draws and also discard souls.
Where are you guys at on the creature base? I'm not a huge fan of swiftspear. Is she necessary? What about some running 1-2 pack rat? It would let us discard late game land/dead draws and also discard souls.
Pack rat is too slow to be in a tier 1 deck in modern. Avoid it.
Swiftspear is super efficient. Its about playstyle. You want to be aggressive run 2-4, otherwise you will need to play a control game in SOME matchups.
Where are you guys at on the creature base? I'm not a huge fan of swiftspear. Is she necessary? What about some running 1-2 pack rat? It would let us discard late game land/dead draws and also discard souls.
Pack rat is too slow to be in a tier 1 deck in modern. Avoid it.
Swiftspear is super efficient. Its about playstyle. You want to be aggressive run 2-4, otherwise you will need to play a control game in SOME matchups.
Exactly this about Swiftspear. Not to mention, off a Bedlam draw she's fantastic, even in mid-late game when we've gained control of the board. She's an extra threat and it's actually super easy to get in good damage with Swiftspear because our must answer threats are more dangerous than a Swiftspear. I think she's vital and unassumingly strong.
I was thinking about Tilonalli's Summoner in this deck as a finisher, possibly just in the board. With Pyromancer and Lingering Souls, getting to Ascend is easier than it might seem on paper and it's a way for us to add a threat to the board that avoids our use of the 'yard. It can be easy to strip the opponent of removal spells to where they're topdecking at the time we'd want to play it, but still seems pretty frail and our deck wants to do something every turn with efficient spells so sinking all our Mana into it seems pretty weak. I kind of talked myself out of it with typing all this, but does anyone else have any opinion on it?
Where are you guys at on the creature base? I'm not a huge fan of swiftspear. Is she necessary? What about some running 1-2 pack rat? It would let us discard late game land/dead draws and also discard souls.
The only 2 creatures that have put up results in that slot is swiftspear > Bomat courier. And no she isn't required, a lot of the good record finishes including gp santa Clara which is the decks best paper showing replaced those 2 slots with more cheap spells like fatal push.
Hi everyone! Long time lurker, but first time poster.
I've been getting back into modern these past two months. Before picking up Mardu Pyromancer I was on U/W control for a bit, but I love the Mardu colors and have always thought hand disruption to be one of the most efficient ways to handle a wide variety of threats. Can't play what you don't have in your hand, well, that's true most of the time lol.
I've made a few changes to Self's "stock" list.
I've dropped burst lightning and a forked bolt for two fatal pushes in the main. The kicker on burst lightning I found to be too heavy, and fork bolt is great, but sometimes things need to die. Can't tell you how many times a champion of the parish with a fat ass pushed my ***** in.
I've cut a Kommand and dreadbore for 2 collective brutality. Kommand at 3 mana feels a bit heavy at times, and more often then not it gets pitched to reveler or looting. Dreadbore is great unconditional removal against a permanent type that can be a real nuisance to handle, and so I've kept it in the side. I've found the versatility of brutality to be pretty great. Kills most dudes, great against combo decks, and the life drain/gain has been more relevant than I believed.
The three cards I'm iffy on are the two swiftspears and one of blood moon. I've recently been thinking about trying out grim lavamancer in the place of swiftspear. What do you all think? Has anyone tested lavamancer in her place?
In regards to blood moon, I have a sick alter, and there are times where it just wins you games that you have no right winning. Can really hose a good bit of decks that aren't ready for it game one, but lately I've been contemplating the 20th land.
If I take moon out of the maindeck, then the terminates may become paths.
I've also included a basic plains in the deck. I run 2 helix in the main and with the blood moon in the main I feel it's nice to be able to fetch a plains out and still cast helix through blood moon if need be. I know that souls can be flashed back, but if you don't have a way to pitch it, then it can be a dead card in hand.
I'll post my current list later when I'm not on the *****ter at work.
Hi everyone! Long time lurker, but first time poster.
I've been getting back into modern these past two months. Before picking up Mardu Pyromancer I was on U/W control for a bit, but I love the Mardu colors and have always thought hand disruption to be one of the most efficient ways to handle a wide variety of threats. Can't play what you don't have in your hand, well, that's true most of the time lol.
I've made a few changes to Self's "stock" list.
I've dropped burst lightning and a forked bolt for two fatal pushes in the main. The kicker on burst lightning I found to be too heavy, and fork bolt is great, but sometimes things need to die. Can't tell you how many times a champion of the parish with a fat ass pushed my ***** in.
I've cut a Kommand and dreadbore for 2 collective brutality. Kommand at 3 mana feels a bit heavy at times, and more often then not it gets pitched to reveler or looting. Dreadbore is great unconditional removal against a permanent type that can be a real nuisance to handle, and so I've kept it in the side. I've found the versatility of brutality to be pretty great. Kills most dudes, great against combo decks, and the life drain/gain has been more relevant than I believed.
The three cards I'm iffy on are the two swiftspears and one of blood moon. I've recently been thinking about trying out grim lavamancer in the place of swiftspear. What do you all think? Has anyone tested lavamancer in her place?
In regards to blood moon, I have a sick alter, and there are times where it just wins you games that you have no right winning. Can really hose a good bit of decks that aren't ready for it game one, but lately I've been contemplating the 20th land.
If I take moon out of the maindeck, then the terminates may become paths.
I've also included a basic plains in the deck. I run 2 helix in the main and with the blood moon in the main I feel it's nice to be able to fetch a plains out and still cast helix through blood moon if need be. I know that souls can be flashed back, but if you don't have a way to pitch it, then it can be a dead card in hand.
I'll post my current list later when I'm not on the *****ter at work.
Any feedback is wanted and welcome!
Welcome to Mardu! The deck is great, I love it. So glad to have another Mardu player. Regarding Swiftspear, there is good talk about it in which I and another person or two discussed Swiftspear's strengths. Grim Lavamancer isn't a replacement in my opinion, as often times we'll be exiling our key instants and sorceries to it, which means we'll have a more expensive Bedlam Reveler to cast. If you want to try it out, play more fetches in the deck over a few basics to support Lavamancer, but it makes you weaker to burn which is already a rough matchup. I tested Grim Lavamancer and honestly hated it specifically for that reason, so I didn't test it more. Regarding Blood Moon, if you feel it's not necessary at your local meta, then by all means make some switches and try it out! But the power of Blood Moon is there and it can lock us up a lot of free wins. When I was playing against Knightfall, I took care of their dorks early on and then was able to lock the game up with a Blood Moon so that they couldn't cast any blue spells, which really helped shut them off and slow them down (they only had two Quellers and a fetch in hand). I personally love Blood Moon, so I play it. Plains is not really that good if you run moon believe it or not. With our low land count, and such a delicate Mana base, I play two Sacred Foundry in order to reliably cast my white spells in Helix and Souls and still have the option of casting red spells, but plains doesn't give us the option of casting our most important red spells. A lot of times you'll find yourself with only four lands in play and a plains is really bad with a hand full of red spells, so I think it's bad. If you play Path over Terminate and no Blood Moon in the 75, then by all means put a plains in the deck. The deck still runs great under a Blood Moon, and Helix is our weakest spell in the deck by far imo so I'm comfortable discarding it under a Blood Moon to Reveler or Faithless Looting. Moon is really just too strong and helps keep our opponents off balance before we can finish them off with a flurry of tokens or a huge Bedlam Reveler. Other than that, the changes seem pretty solid to me. I play two Push over a Forked Bolt and a Burst Lightning as well, and they're awesome. They've not disappointed this far. Hope my personal advice is of some use to you! If any of this is confusing I apologize, for I'm typing all this on my phone so if some clarification is necessary let me know. Have fun with the deck and let us know anything you find interesting or have any questions!
Im new to this deck and was wondering if there is a reason we don’t play Liliana of the veil?
Honestly, the slots are tough to replace and it's difficult (for me at least) to find room for her. I've really wanted to test her our but haven't done so yet. I think the fact that she costs 1BB is also something to consider, as she is un-castable under a Blood Moon with the stock list. I run two swamps in my 75 so I have the option of casting more black spells under a Blood Moon. I thought about dropping Lightning Helix for a couple of Brutality, but I might try one Brutality and a LotV over the two Helix in my 75. It's worth testing her out, though, so if you want to try it out, do so and let us know about your results!
4x Molten Rain
3x Fatal Push
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Wear // Tear
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Kambal, Consul of All ovation
1x Thoughtseize
As you eluded to I do believe you are just bogging down the deck and shooting yourself in the foot. The 1 Blood Moon is there as just a free win when its good in a large meta. With 4 Faithless Looting and 4 Bedlam Reveler you are looking at a good portion of your deck already and finding that 1 moon isnt to hard when you want it.
Nahiri is just to slow and to expensive in this deck, if you have a bedlam and nahiri in hand you are forcing yourself to wait for the 4th land drop before you can cast either. Plus this deck has been gravitating away from white as much as possible which leads me to my next point...
After replacing helix with brutality(a much better fit imo) your only white spell in the MD is lingering souls which is a prime target for all the discard in your deck to retain value. The majority of the time you are not looking to cast lingering souls from hand.
You are severely diluting the quality of your starting hands. As is you only want to see 2-3 lands, with your changes if any of those are a basic plains you now need an extra land or are forced to mulligan. With the standard deck, double reveler in your opener is very weak unless facing a discard opponent, adding nahiri to this further increases cards you dont want to see in your opening 7.
The changes you are making just dont align with what this deck is trying to do. That is my opinion.
Hi everyone! Long time lurker, but first time poster.
I've been getting back into modern these past two months. Before picking up Mardu Pyromancer I was on U/W control for a bit, but I love the Mardu colors and have always thought hand disruption to be one of the most efficient ways to handle a wide variety of threats. Can't play what you don't have in your hand, well, that's true most of the time lol.
I've made a few changes to Self's "stock" list.
I've dropped burst lightning and a forked bolt for two fatal pushes in the main. The kicker on burst lightning I found to be too heavy, and fork bolt is great, but sometimes things need to die. Can't tell you how many times a champion of the parish with a fat ass pushed my ***** in.
I've cut a Kommand and dreadbore for 2 collective brutality. Kommand at 3 mana feels a bit heavy at times, and more often then not it gets pitched to reveler or looting. Dreadbore is great unconditional removal against a permanent type that can be a real nuisance to handle, and so I've kept it in the side. I've found the versatility of brutality to be pretty great. Kills most dudes, great against combo decks, and the life drain/gain has been more relevant than I believed.
The three cards I'm iffy on are the two swiftspears and one of blood moon. I've recently been thinking about trying out grim lavamancer in the place of swiftspear. What do you all think? Has anyone tested lavamancer in her place?
In regards to blood moon, I have a sick alter, and there are times where it just wins you games that you have no right winning. Can really hose a good bit of decks that aren't ready for it game one, but lately I've been contemplating the 20th land.
If I take moon out of the maindeck, then the terminates may become paths.
I've also included a basic plains in the deck. I run 2 helix in the main and with the blood moon in the main I feel it's nice to be able to fetch a plains out and still cast helix through blood moon if need be. I know that souls can be flashed back, but if you don't have a way to pitch it, then it can be a dead card in hand.
I'll post my current list later when I'm not on the *****ter at work.
Any feedback is wanted and welcome!
I feel like the helix's are natural cuts for the brutalities, definitely not a dreadbore as it fulfills a specific role that is incredibly important when it comes up which is common enough to warrant a MD spot. Helix also complicates our manabase, if you really want to cast helix early in the game you are often taking at least 2 extra damage off lands to do so which takes away a lot of the cards value. Outside of that, the first cards ide consider cutting/replacing would be the burst lightning and the two swiftspears.
Lavamancer can basically be looked at like a big delve creature. They both screw with your flashback spells and revelers just as much as one another and should not be included in this deck.
1 Blood Moon is a freebee in a big wide open meta, it doesnt hurt anything to include it as you can just discard it to one of your 10 self discarding spells if its not good. But if it is good, it can just win a game you have no reason to win. However, if you are tuning for a small LGS feel free to cut it if you dont think it is good.
As has been mentioned before, adding plains just dilutes the deck and creates less optimal hands. Terminate is 1 more mana but does not give your opponent a land. I would rather run more terminate than path and let those other color wedges be forced into running path, with or without blood moon in my deck.
I'm not too savvy with this site in terms of replying and uploading deck list or tagging other users in my post. I'm not sure how to respond to multiple people in one message, nor do I know how to properly upload a deck list with the links and all. If someone wouldn't mind explaining some of these things to me I would be immensely grateful!
Both Brulander and Doomfall brought up the negative aspects of Lavamancer in this deck, and I believe they are both spot on. I do think its fantastic against creature decks, but it impedes our own game plan a bit too much.
I'll be keeping Blood Moon in the main based off of what Doomfall and Brulander have said. It's power is undeniable, and my alter is so berry sexy.
Part of me still wants to include the plains, because there have been times where I've been in top deck mode with a reveler, young pyromancer, and a blood moon on the field, and I haven't been able to cast that top deck lingering souls/lightning helix. With that said, I undertsand that having the basic plains in the deck can create hands and situations where your mana base for the majority of the cards in our deck may be thrown off.
Is helix really our weakest card? It always seems like a great tempo swing. It can go to the dome and kill a majority of the creatures we face. Its a fantastic card against burn, which has been acknowledged as one of our tougher matchups.
I have removed dread bore, burst lightning, and a forked bolt to include two fatal pushes and a collective brutality. Would it be better to remove the two helixes for another brutality and to return dread bore to the main? I was considering keeping the helixes and cutting one of the three Kommands for the second brutality. Does 3 Kommands ever feel clunky? The main draw to dread bore is the unconditional planeswalker kill, but are there that many scenarios where we need a one of removal spell for a permanent type that while pesky, doesn't show up in half the decks that exist in the format? Dreadbore can also kill any creature, so at it's worst it's a sorcery speed terminate, which isn't bad.
I guess what I'm most hung up on currently with the deck are the Helixs and whether or not they should remain, and if I should cut the 3rd Kommand for the second brutality. The other option, like I said above, is to cut the two helixs to bring in the second brutality and return the dreadbore.
I'm going to be testing at FNM tonight and the decision is tough. It doesn't help that I have a foil helix from the original Rav. Lol
The other consideration is to cut both swift spears instead of the helixs to bring in dreadbore and another brutality.
I'm not too savvy with this site in terms of replying and uploading deck list or tagging other users in my post. I'm not sure how to respond to multiple people in one message, nor do I know how to properly upload a deck list with the links and all. If someone wouldn't mind explaining some of these things to me I would be immensely grateful!
Both Brulander and Doomfall brought up the negative aspects of Lavamancer in this deck, and I believe they are both spot on. I do think its fantastic against creature decks, but it impedes our own game plan a bit too much.
I'll be keeping Blood Moon in the main based off of what Doomfall and Brulander have said. It's power is undeniable, and my alter is so berry sexy.
Part of me still wants to include the plains, because there have been times where I've been in top deck mode with a reveler, young pyromancer, and a blood moon on the field, and I haven't been able to cast that top deck lingering souls/lightning helix. With that said, I undertsand that having the basic plains in the deck can create hands and situations where your mana base for the majority of the cards in our deck may be thrown off.
Is helix really our weakest card? It always seems like a great tempo swing. It can go to the dome and kill a majority of the creatures we face. Its a fantastic card against burn, which has been acknowledged as one of our tougher matchups.
I have removed dread bore, burst lightning, and a forked bolt to include two fatal pushes and a collective brutality. Would it be better to remove the two helixes for another brutality and to return dread bore to the main? I was considering keeping the helixes and cutting one of the three Kommands for the second brutality. Does 3 Kommands ever feel clunky? The main draw to dread bore is the unconditional planeswalker kill, but are there that many scenarios where we need a one of removal spell for a permanent type that while pesky, doesn't show up in half the decks that exist in the format? Dreadbore can also kill any creature, so at it's worst it's a sorcery speed terminate, which isn't bad.
I guess what I'm most hung up on currently with the deck are the Helixs and whether or not they should remain, and if I should cut the 3rd Kommand for the second brutality. The other option, like I said above, is to cut the two helixs to bring in the second brutality and return the dreadbore.
I'm going to be testing at FNM tonight and the decision is tough. It doesn't help that I have a foil helix from the original Rav. Lol
The other consideration is to cut both swift spears instead of the helixs to bring in dreadbore and another brutality.
I'm not too savvy with this site in terms of replying and uploading deck list or tagging other users in my post. I'm not sure how to respond to multiple people in one message, nor do I know how to properly upload a deck list with the links and all. If someone wouldn't mind explaining some of these things to me I would be immensely grateful!
Both Brulander and Doomfall brought up the negative aspects of Lavamancer in this deck, and I believe they are both spot on. I do think its fantastic against creature decks, but it impedes our own game plan a bit too much.
I'll be keeping Blood Moon in the main based off of what Doomfall and Brulander have said. It's power is undeniable, and my alter is so berry sexy.
Part of me still wants to include the plains, because there have been times where I've been in top deck mode with a reveler, young pyromancer, and a blood moon on the field, and I haven't been able to cast that top deck lingering souls/lightning helix. With that said, I undertsand that having the basic plains in the deck can create hands and situations where your mana base for the majority of the cards in our deck may be thrown off.
Is helix really our weakest card? It always seems like a great tempo swing. It can go to the dome and kill a majority of the creatures we face. Its a fantastic card against burn, which has been acknowledged as one of our tougher matchups.
I have removed dread bore, burst lightning, and a forked bolt to include two fatal pushes and a collective brutality. Would it be better to remove the two helixes for another brutality and to return dread bore to the main? I was considering keeping the helixes and cutting one of the three Kommands for the second brutality. Does 3 Kommands ever feel clunky? The main draw to dread bore is the unconditional planeswalker kill, but are there that many scenarios where we need a one of removal spell for a permanent type that while pesky, doesn't show up in half the decks that exist in the format? Dreadbore can also kill any creature, so at it's worst it's a sorcery speed terminate, which isn't bad.
I guess what I'm most hung up on currently with the deck are the Helixs and whether or not they should remain, and if I should cut the 3rd Kommand for the second brutality. The other option, like I said above, is to cut the two helixs to bring in the second brutality and return the dreadbore.
I'm going to be testing at FNM tonight and the decision is tough. It doesn't help that I have a foil helix from the original Rav. Lol
The other consideration is to cut both swift spears instead of the helixs to bring in dreadbore and another brutality.
One of the big problems with helix is it often costs you an extra 2 life to fetch shock instead of just fetching up a basic which you can reliably do when you replace the helix with brutality. Therefore your really not getting much off the helix.
As for the other stuff it's all meta but I prefer dropping the 2 creatures to add more spells. I love the 1 of Dreadbore and forked bolts because I see affinity and elves quite a bit.
I'm currently on 2 kcmd because yes sometimes it does feel clunky.
Burst lightning is a free cut for whatever you prefer.
For reference here is my list tuned to fight burn and combo which makes up a large portion of my local meta:
TheAmazinSpoder, just as Brulander said, playing Helix has that negative effect where we want to be shocking ourselves off the fetch for Helix, which means we really aren't taking full advantage of the life gain effect like we would want. Playing Brutality and a mountain over one of the Sacred Foundry I play in my main 60 has this secret tech of keeping our life total higher than it would be if I played four shocklands, which is pretty helpful against Burn. I think that switching from two Helix to two Brutality and playing three basic mountains and two basic swamps will be really nice against Burn. I need to post my list one of these days, but I never get on my computer for that. I'm always on my phone. Swiftspears are definitely cut-able, as people have had success without it, as seen by the Top 4 finish at GP Santa Clara this weekend. I still stand by my reasoning on why the Plains is bad, though. I wouldn't ever play it again, even after testing it out in the past.
I tested the deck a bit online. One concern I have that we play relatively few threats and our clock can be really slow sometimes... anybody though about adding bonepicker or madcap experiment + platinum emperion ? Could this make sense?
I tested the deck a bit online. One concern I have that we play relatively few threats and our clock can be really slow sometimes... anybody though about adding bonepicker or madcap experiment + platinum emperion ? Could this make sense?
You will look at half your deck in an average game because of looting and reveler, there are enough threats that people often remove the 2 swiftspear because it's not needed. You also can do a lot of incremental damage through burn.
I didn't like the Swiftspears, exchanged them with 2 Lilis
Round 1 vs GDS (2:1)
Match1: Discarding Counterspells, Lingering Souls blocking a Gurmag Angler for days - then backswing + Bolt and K-Command for win.
Match2: T2 Tasigur, no Terminate on my side, counter for Dreadbore, gg.
Match3: Blood Moon.
Round2 vs G/W-Hatebears (1:2)
Match1: He mulls to 4, Thoughtseize+Inquistion seals the deal.
Match2: Noble Hierarch into Leonin Arbiter + Ghost Quarter + Ghost Quarter...
March3: Kitchen Finks, Voice of Resurgence, 2x Loxodon Smiter(1 discarded) and a Wilt-Leaf Liege.
Round3 vs GDS (2:0)
Both matches were really close, Bedlam Reveler + K-Command for second Reveler won both
Round5 vs. RG-DragonStompy (2:0)
...easy wins, Terminate > Stormbreath Dragon and LotV winning on her own after trades were done.
Round6 vs. UWr-Control (2:1)
Match1: really close until he resolved his 3. Supreme Verdict and flipped Search for Azcanta - then he generated so much value o.o hilarious
Match2/3: Won by Blood Moon T3 and discard T1/2 for his counters.
Round7 vs. BlueMoon-Twin (Kikki) 2:0
...so much favored, Discard and Removal, many tokens. Fun to Play
TL;dr:
- awesome deck, had a lot of fun games and it's mostly favoured in the actual meta
- Collective Brutality - I'm somehow not pleased with this.
- Monastery Swiftspear - I don't understand how it would improve the deck... I never played it that aggressive to support Taylor
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation did actually nothing. Gonna have to replace it I think.
- Had problems with Going-Wide Decks -> what about Damnation in the Sideboard?
Have to present a clock while killing their creatures on sight and prioritizing discard. Post SB bring in all my hate, kambals, eidolons, more discard, pretty much anything relevant and take out the slower stuff like moon, kcommands, souls, forked bolts.
Pack rat is too slow to be in a tier 1 deck in modern. Avoid it.
Swiftspear is super efficient. Its about playstyle. You want to be aggressive run 2-4, otherwise you will need to play a control game in SOME matchups.
Exactly this about Swiftspear. Not to mention, off a Bedlam draw she's fantastic, even in mid-late game when we've gained control of the board. She's an extra threat and it's actually super easy to get in good damage with Swiftspear because our must answer threats are more dangerous than a Swiftspear. I think she's vital and unassumingly strong.
I was thinking about Tilonalli's Summoner in this deck as a finisher, possibly just in the board. With Pyromancer and Lingering Souls, getting to Ascend is easier than it might seem on paper and it's a way for us to add a threat to the board that avoids our use of the 'yard. It can be easy to strip the opponent of removal spells to where they're topdecking at the time we'd want to play it, but still seems pretty frail and our deck wants to do something every turn with efficient spells so sinking all our Mana into it seems pretty weak. I kind of talked myself out of it with typing all this, but does anyone else have any opinion on it?
The only 2 creatures that have put up results in that slot is swiftspear > Bomat courier. And no she isn't required, a lot of the good record finishes including gp santa Clara which is the decks best paper showing replaced those 2 slots with more cheap spells like fatal push.
Blood moons, I want to run one plains.
I know we're supposed to be keeping white to a minimum. Am I shooting myself in the foot here?
Here is what I was thinking of sleeving up:
4x Young Peezy
4x Bedlam Reveler
4x Bolt
4x Inquisition
4x Faithless Looting
4x Lingering Souls
3x Kolaghan's
3x Thoughtseize
2x Terminate
2x Collective
1x Dreadbore
2x Forked Bolt
2x Blood Moon
1x Nahiri
4x Bloodstained
3x Blackcleave Cliff
3x Marsh Flats
2x Blood Crypt
1x Sacred Foundry
1x Godless Shrine
3x Mountain
2x Swamp
1x Plains
Sideboard:
4x Molten Rain
3x Fatal Push
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Wear // Tear
2x Nihil Spellbomb
1x Kambal, Consul of All ovation
1x Thoughtseize
I've been getting back into modern these past two months. Before picking up Mardu Pyromancer I was on U/W control for a bit, but I love the Mardu colors and have always thought hand disruption to be one of the most efficient ways to handle a wide variety of threats. Can't play what you don't have in your hand, well, that's true most of the time lol.
I've made a few changes to Self's "stock" list.
I've dropped burst lightning and a forked bolt for two fatal pushes in the main. The kicker on burst lightning I found to be too heavy, and fork bolt is great, but sometimes things need to die. Can't tell you how many times a champion of the parish with a fat ass pushed my ***** in.
I've cut a Kommand and dreadbore for 2 collective brutality. Kommand at 3 mana feels a bit heavy at times, and more often then not it gets pitched to reveler or looting. Dreadbore is great unconditional removal against a permanent type that can be a real nuisance to handle, and so I've kept it in the side. I've found the versatility of brutality to be pretty great. Kills most dudes, great against combo decks, and the life drain/gain has been more relevant than I believed.
The three cards I'm iffy on are the two swiftspears and one of blood moon. I've recently been thinking about trying out grim lavamancer in the place of swiftspear. What do you all think? Has anyone tested lavamancer in her place?
In regards to blood moon, I have a sick alter, and there are times where it just wins you games that you have no right winning. Can really hose a good bit of decks that aren't ready for it game one, but lately I've been contemplating the 20th land.
If I take moon out of the maindeck, then the terminates may become paths.
I've also included a basic plains in the deck. I run 2 helix in the main and with the blood moon in the main I feel it's nice to be able to fetch a plains out and still cast helix through blood moon if need be. I know that souls can be flashed back, but if you don't have a way to pitch it, then it can be a dead card in hand.
I'll post my current list later when I'm not on the *****ter at work.
Any feedback is wanted and welcome!
Welcome to Mardu! The deck is great, I love it. So glad to have another Mardu player. Regarding Swiftspear, there is good talk about it in which I and another person or two discussed Swiftspear's strengths. Grim Lavamancer isn't a replacement in my opinion, as often times we'll be exiling our key instants and sorceries to it, which means we'll have a more expensive Bedlam Reveler to cast. If you want to try it out, play more fetches in the deck over a few basics to support Lavamancer, but it makes you weaker to burn which is already a rough matchup. I tested Grim Lavamancer and honestly hated it specifically for that reason, so I didn't test it more. Regarding Blood Moon, if you feel it's not necessary at your local meta, then by all means make some switches and try it out! But the power of Blood Moon is there and it can lock us up a lot of free wins. When I was playing against Knightfall, I took care of their dorks early on and then was able to lock the game up with a Blood Moon so that they couldn't cast any blue spells, which really helped shut them off and slow them down (they only had two Quellers and a fetch in hand). I personally love Blood Moon, so I play it. Plains is not really that good if you run moon believe it or not. With our low land count, and such a delicate Mana base, I play two Sacred Foundry in order to reliably cast my white spells in Helix and Souls and still have the option of casting red spells, but plains doesn't give us the option of casting our most important red spells. A lot of times you'll find yourself with only four lands in play and a plains is really bad with a hand full of red spells, so I think it's bad. If you play Path over Terminate and no Blood Moon in the 75, then by all means put a plains in the deck. The deck still runs great under a Blood Moon, and Helix is our weakest spell in the deck by far imo so I'm comfortable discarding it under a Blood Moon to Reveler or Faithless Looting. Moon is really just too strong and helps keep our opponents off balance before we can finish them off with a flurry of tokens or a huge Bedlam Reveler. Other than that, the changes seem pretty solid to me. I play two Push over a Forked Bolt and a Burst Lightning as well, and they're awesome. They've not disappointed this far. Hope my personal advice is of some use to you! If any of this is confusing I apologize, for I'm typing all this on my phone so if some clarification is necessary let me know. Have fun with the deck and let us know anything you find interesting or have any questions!
Honestly, the slots are tough to replace and it's difficult (for me at least) to find room for her. I've really wanted to test her our but haven't done so yet. I think the fact that she costs 1BB is also something to consider, as she is un-castable under a Blood Moon with the stock list. I run two swamps in my 75 so I have the option of casting more black spells under a Blood Moon. I thought about dropping Lightning Helix for a couple of Brutality, but I might try one Brutality and a LotV over the two Helix in my 75. It's worth testing her out, though, so if you want to try it out, do so and let us know about your results!
As you eluded to I do believe you are just bogging down the deck and shooting yourself in the foot. The 1 Blood Moon is there as just a free win when its good in a large meta. With 4 Faithless Looting and 4 Bedlam Reveler you are looking at a good portion of your deck already and finding that 1 moon isnt to hard when you want it.
Nahiri is just to slow and to expensive in this deck, if you have a bedlam and nahiri in hand you are forcing yourself to wait for the 4th land drop before you can cast either. Plus this deck has been gravitating away from white as much as possible which leads me to my next point...
After replacing helix with brutality(a much better fit imo) your only white spell in the MD is lingering souls which is a prime target for all the discard in your deck to retain value. The majority of the time you are not looking to cast lingering souls from hand.
You are severely diluting the quality of your starting hands. As is you only want to see 2-3 lands, with your changes if any of those are a basic plains you now need an extra land or are forced to mulligan. With the standard deck, double reveler in your opener is very weak unless facing a discard opponent, adding nahiri to this further increases cards you dont want to see in your opening 7.
The changes you are making just dont align with what this deck is trying to do. That is my opinion.
I feel like the helix's are natural cuts for the brutalities, definitely not a dreadbore as it fulfills a specific role that is incredibly important when it comes up which is common enough to warrant a MD spot. Helix also complicates our manabase, if you really want to cast helix early in the game you are often taking at least 2 extra damage off lands to do so which takes away a lot of the cards value. Outside of that, the first cards ide consider cutting/replacing would be the burst lightning and the two swiftspears.
Lavamancer can basically be looked at like a big delve creature. They both screw with your flashback spells and revelers just as much as one another and should not be included in this deck.
1 Blood Moon is a freebee in a big wide open meta, it doesnt hurt anything to include it as you can just discard it to one of your 10 self discarding spells if its not good. But if it is good, it can just win a game you have no reason to win. However, if you are tuning for a small LGS feel free to cut it if you dont think it is good.
As has been mentioned before, adding plains just dilutes the deck and creates less optimal hands. Terminate is 1 more mana but does not give your opponent a land. I would rather run more terminate than path and let those other color wedges be forced into running path, with or without blood moon in my deck.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mtgo-standings/modern-mocs-2018-01-08
I think you are correct in dropping the plains. I may add another sacred foundry in its place.
1 blood moon may be correct too. I don't think this version is terrible as evidenced by the 7-1 finish.
Both Brulander and Doomfall brought up the negative aspects of Lavamancer in this deck, and I believe they are both spot on. I do think its fantastic against creature decks, but it impedes our own game plan a bit too much.
I'll be keeping Blood Moon in the main based off of what Doomfall and Brulander have said. It's power is undeniable, and my alter is so berry sexy.
Part of me still wants to include the plains, because there have been times where I've been in top deck mode with a reveler, young pyromancer, and a blood moon on the field, and I haven't been able to cast that top deck lingering souls/lightning helix. With that said, I undertsand that having the basic plains in the deck can create hands and situations where your mana base for the majority of the cards in our deck may be thrown off.
Is helix really our weakest card? It always seems like a great tempo swing. It can go to the dome and kill a majority of the creatures we face. Its a fantastic card against burn, which has been acknowledged as one of our tougher matchups.
I have removed dread bore, burst lightning, and a forked bolt to include two fatal pushes and a collective brutality. Would it be better to remove the two helixes for another brutality and to return dread bore to the main? I was considering keeping the helixes and cutting one of the three Kommands for the second brutality. Does 3 Kommands ever feel clunky? The main draw to dread bore is the unconditional planeswalker kill, but are there that many scenarios where we need a one of removal spell for a permanent type that while pesky, doesn't show up in half the decks that exist in the format? Dreadbore can also kill any creature, so at it's worst it's a sorcery speed terminate, which isn't bad.
I guess what I'm most hung up on currently with the deck are the Helixs and whether or not they should remain, and if I should cut the 3rd Kommand for the second brutality. The other option, like I said above, is to cut the two helixs to bring in the second brutality and return the dreadbore.
I'm going to be testing at FNM tonight and the decision is tough. It doesn't help that I have a foil helix from the original Rav. Lol
The other consideration is to cut both swift spears instead of the helixs to bring in dreadbore and another brutality.
One of the big problems with helix is it often costs you an extra 2 life to fetch shock instead of just fetching up a basic which you can reliably do when you replace the helix with brutality. Therefore your really not getting much off the helix.
As for the other stuff it's all meta but I prefer dropping the 2 creatures to add more spells. I love the 1 of Dreadbore and forked bolts because I see affinity and elves quite a bit.
I'm currently on 2 kcmd because yes sometimes it does feel clunky.
Burst lightning is a free cut for whatever you prefer.
For reference here is my list tuned to fight burn and combo which makes up a large portion of my local meta:
4 Young Pyromancer
4 Faithless Looting
2 Fatal Push
2 Forked Bolt
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
3 Thoughtseize
2 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Collective Brutality
1 Blood Moon
2 Terminate
4 Blackcleave Cliffs
4 Marsh Flats
1 Dreadbore
2 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Mountain
2 Sacred Foundry
1 Swamp
1 Collective Brutality
4 Nihil Spellbomb
3 Dragon's Claw
1 Shattering Spree
2 Wear // Tear
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
You will look at half your deck in an average game because of looting and reveler, there are enough threats that people often remove the 2 swiftspear because it's not needed. You also can do a lot of incremental damage through burn.
2 Blood Crypt
4 Marsh Flats
3 Mountain
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Bedlam Reveler
4 Young Pyromancer
1 Dreadbore
4 Faithless Looting
1 Forked Bolt
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Kolaghan's Command
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Lingering Souls
2 Terminate
3 Thoughtseize
1 Blood Moon
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the last Hope
2 Collective Brutality
3 Blood Moon
2 Fatal Push
2 Kambal, Consul of Allocation
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Collective Brutality
2 Wear // Tear
I didn't like the Swiftspears, exchanged them with 2 Lilis
Round 1 vs GDS (2:1)
Match1: Discarding Counterspells, Lingering Souls blocking a Gurmag Angler for days - then backswing + Bolt and K-Command for win.
Match2: T2 Tasigur, no Terminate on my side, counter for Dreadbore, gg.
Match3: Blood Moon.
Round2 vs G/W-Hatebears (1:2)
Match1: He mulls to 4, Thoughtseize+Inquistion seals the deal.
Match2: Noble Hierarch into Leonin Arbiter + Ghost Quarter + Ghost Quarter...
March3: Kitchen Finks, Voice of Resurgence, 2x Loxodon Smiter(1 discarded) and a Wilt-Leaf Liege.
Round3 vs GDS (2:0)
Both matches were really close, Bedlam Reveler + K-Command for second Reveler won both
Round4 vs 5C-Humans (1:2)
Match1: Flooded.
Match2: Blood Moon.
Match3: Aether Vial - 3x Champion of the Parish with 3x Kitesail Firelooter snapping every piece of removal I draw and a Thalia.
Round5 vs. RG-DragonStompy (2:0)
...easy wins, Terminate > Stormbreath Dragon and LotV winning on her own after trades were done.
Round6 vs. UWr-Control (2:1)
Match1: really close until he resolved his 3. Supreme Verdict and flipped Search for Azcanta - then he generated so much value o.o hilarious
Match2/3: Won by Blood Moon T3 and discard T1/2 for his counters.
Round7 vs. BlueMoon-Twin (Kikki) 2:0
...so much favored, Discard and Removal, many tokens. Fun to Play
TL;dr:
- awesome deck, had a lot of fun games and it's mostly favoured in the actual meta
- Collective Brutality - I'm somehow not pleased with this.
- Monastery Swiftspear - I don't understand how it would improve the deck... I never played it that aggressive to support Taylor
- Kambal, Consul of Allocation did actually nothing. Gonna have to replace it I think.
- Had problems with Going-Wide Decks -> what about Damnation in the Sideboard?
In the end I went to prices, 13.
flowers shall grow
and I am in them
and that is eternity."