Most people who play 1-ofs are splitting the difference between two cards with partial overlap, like for example Doom Blade and Go for the Throat. Vs. Jund you bring in GftT, vs. Affinity you side in Blade, and vs. Zoo you get both.
I have a 1-of Map in the side to double my chances of seeing it when I want it (I run one main).
Since the inclusion of TKS over sculler my early game has seemed a lot slower, and I've occasionally found myself without processing fuel for the early stranglers and herders. For other people running the new cards: how has your early game been? Part of it is just that I haven't been drawing my lingering souls and discard but the addition of cards like TKS and reality smasher has definitely raised the curve of the deck. I am currently running 3 seers and 2 smashers, I have not been doing badly with the new build but it feels much clunkier than the original, and I often find myself winning from behind rather than dominating out of the gate.
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
Since the inclusion of TKS over sculler my early game has seemed a lot slower, and I've occasionally found myself without processing fuel for the early stranglers and herders. For other people running the new cards: how has your early game been? Part of it is just that I haven't been drawing my lingering souls and discard but the addition of cards like TKS and reality smasher has definitely raised the curve of the deck. I am currently running 3 seers and 2 smashers, I have not been doing badly with the new build but it feels much clunkier than the original, and I often find myself winning from behind rather than dominating out of the gate.
I had never been running scullers so I don't know how they felt before. I know people spoken against the main deck Surgical Extraction but it really has been an all-star in my deck. It can turn on herder at instant speed as well as muck with some decks. One of my favorite targets is fetch lands. Many fetches are 4x in decks, which immediately turns on herders, makes sowers better and reduces mana fixing for a lot of decks. However, Extraction does one other thing that people forget. It gives you a ton of information. I get to look through my opponents hand and their library. I get to figure out what type of deck they are playing, and I can also look at the number of key cards they are playing. This lets me play around their hand and gives me a significant advantage.
If you pair it with turn 1 discard, or off of TKS you can help target your extraction to pick apart their hand as well. A lot of players don't expect this card, and they especially don't expect it when you are tapped out.
Anyway, if you are having trouble turning on your processors, give it a shot.
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Current Decks
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No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
I realy like Matter Reshaper in a deck like this one.
Someone mentioned before in this thread that a 3/2 that replaces himself when dies is just meh. And it is in a vaccum, but this deck just destroys the opponent if you survive the first turns (except against combo, wich includes tron) and MR is a great tool for that. You can play him proactively without worrying about losing value (unlike Strangler in an empty board) and you can chump block with him "gaining" some life and a card and posibly killing a creature. And unlike decks that try to race, a Path directed to him is a big new for us: is the same as a lightning bolt with us revealing a land with his ability and it means a Path less against our big dudes.
Matter Reshaper text is "When Matter Reshaper dies..." not when he leaves the battlefield. If Matter Reshaper gets exiled, he will not have his card drawing ability trigger.
I realy like Matter Reshaper in a deck like this one.
Someone mentioned before in this thread that a 3/2 that replaces himself when dies is just meh. And it is in a vaccum, but this deck just destroys the opponent if you survive the first turns (except against combo, wich includes tron) and MR is a great tool for that. You can play him proactively without worrying about losing value (unlike Strangler in an empty board) and you can chump block with him "gaining" some life and a card and posibly killing a creature. And unlike decks that try to race, a Path directed to him is a big new for us: is the same as a lightning bolt with us revealing a land with his ability and it means a Path less against our big dudes.
Matter Reshaper text is "When Matter Reshaper dies..." not when he leaves the battlefield. If Matter Reshaper gets exiled, he will not have his card drawing ability trigger.
He's saying that if it gets Pathed, it's kind of the same as it getting Bolted and revealing a land off of its trigger. Except of course, the land comes into play tapped in the first scenario.
I would consider Matter Reshaper as Stranglers 5-8 if you're going to play any copies. The processing trigger of Strangler is the #1 most useful thing that helps the most with "just surviving" so if you feel like you need more of that, I don't think it makes sense to cut Strangler for Reshaper.
Since the inclusion of TKS over sculler my early game has seemed a lot slower, and I've occasionally found myself without processing fuel for the early stranglers and herders. For other people running the new cards: how has your early game been? Part of it is just that I haven't been drawing my lingering souls and discard but the addition of cards like TKS and reality smasher has definitely raised the curve of the deck. I am currently running 3 seers and 2 smashers, I have not been doing badly with the new build but it feels much clunkier than the original, and I often find myself winning from behind rather than dominating out of the gate.
I had never been running scullers so I don't know how they felt before. I know people spoken against the main deck Surgical Extraction but it really has been an all-star in my deck. It can turn on herder at instant speed as well as muck with some decks. One of my favorite targets is fetch lands. Many fetches are 4x in decks, which immediately turns on herders, makes sowers better and reduces mana fixing for a lot of decks. However, Extraction does one other thing that people forget. It gives you a ton of information. I get to look through my opponents hand and their library. I get to figure out what type of deck they are playing, and I can also look at the number of key cards they are playing. This lets me play around their hand and gives me a significant advantage.
If you pair it with turn 1 discard, or off of TKS you can help target your extraction to pick apart their hand as well. A lot of players don't expect this card, and they especially don't expect it when you are tapped out.
Anyway, if you are having trouble turning on your processors, give it a shot.
I am already running a surgical and and extirpate md and I agree w/ you, they are awesome. I've had a game against burn where I pulled two bolts out of the opponent's hand on my first turn. How many eye of Ugins do you run? I am on 2 but I could see the argument for 3 now that we have so many more eldrazi
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My Decks:
UG Merfolk RG 8-Whack BWG Abzan midrange GRB Living End UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin" RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!" BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
The biggest issue I see with Citadel (aside from space) is that we generally want to run some number of Stony Silences in the board and they really don't play well together. I guess MLD is another reason to run Warping Wail though.
When I first assembled the deck, someone had posted a fantastic sideboarding guide that I still use as a reference. It's usually not a problem of what to bring in but more what to take out. I will try and find it and link it sometime tomorrow.
Hey Exatraz, I didn't get any feedback on my own sideboard and siding in/out strategy and I am hoping to see the link you mentioned if you can find it. Thanks man!
Since the inclusion of TKS over sculler my early game has seemed a lot slower, and I've occasionally found myself without processing fuel for the early stranglers and herders. For other people running the new cards: how has your early game been? Part of it is just that I haven't been drawing my lingering souls and discard but the addition of cards like TKS and reality smasher has definitely raised the curve of the deck. I am currently running 3 seers and 2 smashers, I have not been doing badly with the new build but it feels much clunkier than the original, and I often find myself winning from behind rather than dominating out of the gate.
I had never been running scullers so I don't know how they felt before. I know people spoken against the main deck Surgical Extraction but it really has been an all-star in my deck. It can turn on herder at instant speed as well as muck with some decks. One of my favorite targets is fetch lands. Many fetches are 4x in decks, which immediately turns on herders, makes sowers better and reduces mana fixing for a lot of decks. However, Extraction does one other thing that people forget. It gives you a ton of information. I get to look through my opponents hand and their library. I get to figure out what type of deck they are playing, and I can also look at the number of key cards they are playing. This lets me play around their hand and gives me a significant advantage.
If you pair it with turn 1 discard, or off of TKS you can help target your extraction to pick apart their hand as well. A lot of players don't expect this card, and they especially don't expect it when you are tapped out.
Anyway, if you are having trouble turning on your processors, give it a shot.
I am already running a surgical and and extirpate md and I agree w/ you, they are awesome. I've had a game against burn where I pulled two bolts out of the opponent's hand on my first turn. How many eye of Ugins do you run? I am on 2 but I could see the argument for 3 now that we have so many more eldrazi
I run 3 eyes, but no maps.
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No idea because my favorite decks keep getting banned or having the rules changed against them
I've tested it out for a few matches and it feels good. I used to run 2 Eye and 2 Map, but since 90% of the time I used the maps to fetch an Eye, I just switched one for another Eye anyway.
The landbase seems a bit wonky though. I thought I wouldn't need the fetches but maybe I'll end up ordering a couple. I'm seriously considering removing the Bojuka though, it just hurts more than it helps me most of the time, or maybe I just have bad luck.
I also think I might be to low on spot removal, but I have no idea what to cut for it. I like the singleton All is Dust since it's easy to cast and can get me out of some very rough spots, especially in a deck that sometimes deliberately falls behind on the first few turns.
After getting a 1st/2nd split last week with BW Processors, I ran it back. 47 player FNM.
Round 1 vs. Affinity. This was the guy who I lent the deck to and also who I got the 1st/2nd split with last week. After losing to me, he won his last 5 rounds. 2-0.
Round 2 vs. Jund. I drew well, kept Liliana at bay, and didn't have to face much. Thought-Knot Seer was great here. 2-0.
Round 3 vs. Junk Liege. The game is pretty grindy. I do Oblivion Sower and get his Green land and Gavony Township. This makes it pretty easy to get through eventually. The next game is pretty grindy as well and I think if he drew a 2nd Gavony Township (first was Ghost Quartered) or Wilt-Leaf Liege, he would have been good, but he scooped because he got tired. 2-0.
Round 4 vs. RUG Tempo. He got me with EoT Snapcaster Mage, targeting the Lightning Bolt that he had done. I Scrabbling Claws it, but he has Rancor and another Lightning Bolt for 1 over lethal. He was at 4 life and dead on board to Wasteland Strangler and a flying token next turn. He mulled to 5 and only played Gitaxian Probe this whole game. I had a very defensive hand in the final game and he drew a bunch of land. I still had double Path to Exile and Go for the Throat in hand when I won. 2-1.
Round 5 vs. BW Tokens. I played 2 Oblivion Sowers this game, getting around 8 lands total, including Vault of the Archangel. The Vault made it easy to win, whereas it would have been a bit of a grind. In the next game, I played a control route while he hit back and forth with 1/1 fliers. He eventually needed to top deck another Vault of the Archangel, since I Ghost Quartered the first one. He didn't and I won. We also both had Timely Reinforcements back and forth, but he missed on tokens the first time and I did it twice. 2-0.
Round 6 vs. UR Kiki. 0-0-3. We ID and get 1st/2nd split.
I took out 1 Slaughter Pact, 1 Go for the Throat, and 1 Blight Herder mainboard for 3 Thought-Knot Seer. That card is ridiculously good. 5-0-1.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
The landbase seems a bit wonky though. I thought I wouldn't need the fetches but maybe I'll end up ordering a couple. I'm seriously considering removing the Bojuka though, it just hurts more than it helps me most of the time, or maybe I just have bad luck.
I also think I might be to low on spot removal, but I have no idea what to cut for it. I like the singleton All is Dust since it's easy to cast and can get me out of some very rough spots, especially in a deck that sometimes deliberately falls behind on the first few turns.
Any obvious flaws/possible improvements?
I don't want to be that guy, but I'll refer back to my deck for something that's been really consistent.
I used to have a few tapped lands & no fetches.
I kept losing games to Blood Moon & Kiki-Chord's/Collected Zoo's Magus of the Moon. Fetches + Maps have made blood WAY less of a problem. A real issue is Affinity with Blood Moon. You will lose if they Blood Moon + have a good draw and you don't have Stony Silence on the table.
Fetches also make Rest for the Weary more reliable, if you're running that. I switch to Timely reinforcements which can help in random aggro mathcups or any redX deck w/ creatures.
Personally I went down to 2x Oblivion Sower. I found that I often play catchup in this deck because we have a bunch of slow tapout cards, that require specific setup & sequencing with an awkward mana base. Oblivion Sower sat in my hand making my opening 7 real bad in many cases.
This deck usually isn't the one with the good hand. Your opponent usually has that. Modern is mostly linear now, so your opponent is gonna have like HAND(Land, land, threat, threat, threat, removal, other) or (land, land, land, Serum Visions, Removal, discard/removal, Combo Piece). You want your deck to be able to stumble through turns 1-4 in your bad draws by setting up for Herder/Strangler turns, or Lingering souls turns. Your great draws are way less frequent because (EYE, Ugin, Temple, Herder)...still requires an early process.
With 3 eye, you'll get plenty of Eye + Temple = turn 2 TKS. That opening happens fairly frequently, but it doesn't win the game the way your linear opponent's decks will.
If you're looking for simple spot removal swap, try:
-1 or -2 Oblivion Sower
+1 Go for the Throat or +1 Doom Blade.
Although you have All is Dust, which synergizes with less spot removal and more ramp.
I've also found the Oblivion Ring pretty consistent to help exile if you're short on process effects. It happens to hit Finks/Voice as Path #5 where exile does matter. Hits Cranial Plating, Tsagur, Ensnaring Bridge, Blood Moon too. ANTI-synergy with All is Dust.
5 discard +3 TKS = 8 discard effects. I never liked to go above 7, even in Jund/Abzan. Drop a IoK or Thoughtseize if you're looking for another cut.
Sideboard looks solid.
I diversify my answers up a bit to keep opponent guessing, but that's a preference.
What are the Ratchet Bombs for?
Blood Moon is a great reason to run fetches and I think it might just make me bite the bullet and buy some.
The Oblivion Ring might be more useful than All Is Dust for me in certain matches (Affinity), but I didn't see a lot of those in my meta when I played so I guess I'll just keep that in mind.
Cutting a discard effect sounds great actually, I hadn't thought of that. As for the Sower, I'm less certain. Sure, they end up being sided out on faster matches anyway, but I'm not sure about runing less than 4. Maybe I'll try it at 3 and see how it goes.
Ratchet Bombs are in the place of Engineered Explosives for now since I haven't been able to get them yet. They're slower but less mana intensive, though Explosives are probably better anyway and I'll switch them when I get the chance.
Your decklist looks great, but one thing I'm curious about are the Matter Reshapers. Do you usually hit stuff with them? I had assumed they would just miss most of the time, and end up being a 3 mana cantrip which is kinda lackluster. There's a synergy going on there with O-Ring though which is nice I guess.
After getting a 1st/2nd split last week with BW Processors, I ran it back. 47 player FNM.
Round 1 vs. Affinity. This was the guy who I lent the deck to and also who I got the 1st/2nd split with last week. After losing to me, he won his last 5 rounds. 2-0.
Round 2 vs. Jund. I drew well, kept Liliana at bay, and didn't have to face much. Thought-Knot Seer was great here. 2-0.
Round 3 vs. Junk Liege. The game is pretty grindy. I do Oblivion Sower and get his Green land and Gavony Township. This makes it pretty easy to get through eventually. The next game is pretty grindy as well and I think if he drew a 2nd Gavony Township (first was Ghost Quartered) or Wilt-Leaf Liege, he would have been good, but he scooped because he got tired. 2-0.
Round 4 vs. RUG Tempo. He got me with EoT Snapcaster Mage, targeting the Lightning Bolt that he had done. I Scrabbling Claws it, but he has Rancor and another Lightning Bolt for 1 over lethal. He was at 4 life and dead on board to Wasteland Strangler and a flying token next turn. He mulled to 5 and only played Gitaxian Probe this whole game. I had a very defensive hand in the final game and he drew a bunch of land. I still had double Path to Exile and Go for the Throat in hand when I won. 2-1.
Round 5 vs. BW Tokens. I played 2 Oblivion Sowers this game, getting around 8 lands total, including Vault of the Archangel. The Vault made it easy to win, whereas it would have been a bit of a grind. In the next game, I played a control route while he hit back and forth with 1/1 fliers. He eventually needed to top deck another Vault of the Archangel, since I Ghost Quartered the first one. He didn't and I won. We also both had Timely Reinforcements back and forth, but he missed on tokens the first time and I did it twice. 2-0.
Round 6 vs. UR Kiki. 0-0-3. We ID and get 1st/2nd split.
I took out 1 Slaughter Pact, 1 Go for the Throat, and 1 Blight Herder mainboard for 3 Thought-Knot Seer. That card is ridiculously good. 5-0-1.
I'm glad someone else has been having success with a build that's tilting towards what I was trying to argue for a few pages back. I've had some nice results in testing playing super fair by cutting Oblivion Sower altogether. Oblivion Ring is a great idea, and helps us further the analogy between Jund/Abzan that I was trying to make before. It's like our Maelstrom Pulse and it doesn't suck now that Abrupt Decay is even worse than it used to be. For reference, what I've been running is:
My land base is still a lot safer and more conservative than most people's lists, and I'm kind of tired of arguing about that, so take it or leave it, but as far as the spells are concerned, here are a few observations I've had:
1) Turn 1 discard is still really important. You can't exactly treat TKS as counting towards your discard. TKS's effect is terrific, but you need enough early disruption in the first few turns of the game to survive, and TKS is sometimes too late. I don't like cutting these down to make room for Thought-Knot.
2) Spellskite into Thought-Knot is often extremely backbreaking. Spellskite is really well positioned now that Infect and Burn are on the uptick with Twin's demise, so I think it's right to maindeck these.
3) You just don't need Oblivion Sower or Expedition Map in this deck to get to Ulamog. This deck is so good at playing the fair midrange game even without Temple or Eye that you just reliably get to enough land drops + Blight Herder tokens to make Ulamog happen. I can't emphasize this enough given how bad Expedition Map is as a late game topdeck.
4) Blood Moon does not cripple this deck because everything is just inherently castable and I run 4 fetches. Spreading Seas on a Temple or Eye is far from impactful. I've won through triple Spreading Seas in testing.
Food Chain Goblins-Your results sound awesome. Can you post your decklist?
I think I actually have to change a few cards in my deck list. It's based off a list from over a month ago and I haven't changed anything but Thought-Knot Seer.
Legacy - Sneak Show, BR Reanimator, Miracles, UW Stoneblade
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/ Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander - Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build) (dead format for me)
Food Chain Goblins-Your results sound awesome. Can you post your decklist?
I think I actually have to change a few cards in my deck list. It's based off a list from over a month ago and I haven't changed anything but Thought-Knot Seer.
With this list, in 25+ people Modern Mondays I have managed to go:
4-0, 3-0-1, 3-1, 4-0, 3-0-1
And now with my new oath list with only results from yesterday's FNM:
3-1 for 2nd place. Turns out that place has a lot of burn decks and I won 2-0 to burn first round and lost 1-2 to burn last round. Beating GR Tron on my 2nd round and affinity on 3rd round.
In all my matches, I only saw one TKS, so I can't really say much about it. Smasher did wonders against Tron. Displacer was a godsent against affinity and allowed me to stabilize at 1 hp until I was able to start healing up with vault. Blinking and tapping the flyers, removing ravager counters, taking off plating and throwing a stony silence after... boy that was magical. I'm thinking about putting at least one into the mainboard as he's an amazing mid/late game draw, though a bit less useful early on since he doesn't do anything as he enters the battlefiend. Tendrils were amazing wipes vs affinity.
I have a 1-of Map in the side to double my chances of seeing it when I want it (I run one main).
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
I had never been running scullers so I don't know how they felt before. I know people spoken against the main deck Surgical Extraction but it really has been an all-star in my deck. It can turn on herder at instant speed as well as muck with some decks. One of my favorite targets is fetch lands. Many fetches are 4x in decks, which immediately turns on herders, makes sowers better and reduces mana fixing for a lot of decks. However, Extraction does one other thing that people forget. It gives you a ton of information. I get to look through my opponents hand and their library. I get to figure out what type of deck they are playing, and I can also look at the number of key cards they are playing. This lets me play around their hand and gives me a significant advantage.
If you pair it with turn 1 discard, or off of TKS you can help target your extraction to pick apart their hand as well. A lot of players don't expect this card, and they especially don't expect it when you are tapped out.
Anyway, if you are having trouble turning on your processors, give it a shot.
Matter Reshaper text is "When Matter Reshaper dies..." not when he leaves the battlefield. If Matter Reshaper gets exiled, he will not have his card drawing ability trigger.
EDH: Rakdos, Lord of Riots
I would consider Matter Reshaper as Stranglers 5-8 if you're going to play any copies. The processing trigger of Strangler is the #1 most useful thing that helps the most with "just surviving" so if you feel like you need more of that, I don't think it makes sense to cut Strangler for Reshaper.
I am already running a surgical and and extirpate md and I agree w/ you, they are awesome. I've had a game against burn where I pulled two bolts out of the opponent's hand on my first turn. How many eye of Ugins do you run? I am on 2 but I could see the argument for 3 now that we have so many more eldrazi
RG 8-Whack
BWG Abzan midrange
GRB Living End
UWB Spirit Control
GU Kruphix's "Hug Assassin"
RW Kalemne's "Play Fatties and Hope for the Best!"
BUGW Atraxa's "All counters, all the time"
I run 3 eyes, but no maps.
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
3 Ghost Quarter
3 Godless Shrine
3 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Vault of the Archangel
4 Blight Herder
4 Oblivion Sower
3 Thought-Knot Seer
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Wasteland Strangler
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Lingering Souls
1 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
1 Expedition Map
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Disenchant
2 Languish
2 Memoricide
2 Ratchet Bomb
3 Rest for the Weary
2 Stony Silence
2 Surgical Extraction
I've tested it out for a few matches and it feels good. I used to run 2 Eye and 2 Map, but since 90% of the time I used the maps to fetch an Eye, I just switched one for another Eye anyway.
The landbase seems a bit wonky though. I thought I wouldn't need the fetches but maybe I'll end up ordering a couple. I'm seriously considering removing the Bojuka though, it just hurts more than it helps me most of the time, or maybe I just have bad luck.
I also think I might be to low on spot removal, but I have no idea what to cut for it. I like the singleton All is Dust since it's easy to cast and can get me out of some very rough spots, especially in a deck that sometimes deliberately falls behind on the first few turns.
Any obvious flaws/possible improvements?
Round 1 vs. Affinity. This was the guy who I lent the deck to and also who I got the 1st/2nd split with last week. After losing to me, he won his last 5 rounds. 2-0.
Round 2 vs. Jund. I drew well, kept Liliana at bay, and didn't have to face much. Thought-Knot Seer was great here. 2-0.
Round 3 vs. Junk Liege. The game is pretty grindy. I do Oblivion Sower and get his Green land and Gavony Township. This makes it pretty easy to get through eventually. The next game is pretty grindy as well and I think if he drew a 2nd Gavony Township (first was Ghost Quartered) or Wilt-Leaf Liege, he would have been good, but he scooped because he got tired. 2-0.
Round 4 vs. RUG Tempo. He got me with EoT Snapcaster Mage, targeting the Lightning Bolt that he had done. I Scrabbling Claws it, but he has Rancor and another Lightning Bolt for 1 over lethal. He was at 4 life and dead on board to Wasteland Strangler and a flying token next turn. He mulled to 5 and only played Gitaxian Probe this whole game. I had a very defensive hand in the final game and he drew a bunch of land. I still had double Path to Exile and Go for the Throat in hand when I won. 2-1.
Round 5 vs. BW Tokens. I played 2 Oblivion Sowers this game, getting around 8 lands total, including Vault of the Archangel. The Vault made it easy to win, whereas it would have been a bit of a grind. In the next game, I played a control route while he hit back and forth with 1/1 fliers. He eventually needed to top deck another Vault of the Archangel, since I Ghost Quartered the first one. He didn't and I won. We also both had Timely Reinforcements back and forth, but he missed on tokens the first time and I did it twice. 2-0.
Round 6 vs. UR Kiki. 0-0-3. We ID and get 1st/2nd split.
I took out 1 Slaughter Pact, 1 Go for the Throat, and 1 Blight Herder mainboard for 3 Thought-Knot Seer. That card is ridiculously good. 5-0-1.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)I don't want to be that guy, but I'll refer back to my deck for something that's been really consistent.
4x Blight Herder
2x Matter Reshaper
2x Oblivion Sower
3x Thought-Knot Seer
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4x Wasteland Strangler
Other Spells (14)
4x Path to Exile
1x Go for the Throat
1x Oblivion Ring
3x Inquisition of Kozilek
1x Thoughtseize
4x Lingering Souls
Artifact (6)
2x Expedition Map
4x Relic of Progenitus
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Caves of Koilos
4x Eldrazi Temple
2x Eye of Ugin
3x Ghost Quarter
2x Godless Shrine
4x Marsh Flats
2x Plains
1x Swamp
2x Tendo Ice Bridge
2x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Vault of the Archangel
1x Damnation
2x Disenchant
1x Dismember
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Languish
2x Memoricide
2x Stony Silence
2x Surgical Extraction
2x Timely Reinforcements
I used to have a few tapped lands & no fetches.
I kept losing games to Blood Moon & Kiki-Chord's/Collected Zoo's Magus of the Moon. Fetches + Maps have made blood WAY less of a problem. A real issue is Affinity with Blood Moon. You will lose if they Blood Moon + have a good draw and you don't have Stony Silence on the table.
Fetches also make Rest for the Weary more reliable, if you're running that. I switch to Timely reinforcements which can help in random aggro mathcups or any redX deck w/ creatures.
Personally I went down to 2x Oblivion Sower. I found that I often play catchup in this deck because we have a bunch of slow tapout cards, that require specific setup & sequencing with an awkward mana base. Oblivion Sower sat in my hand making my opening 7 real bad in many cases.
This deck usually isn't the one with the good hand. Your opponent usually has that. Modern is mostly linear now, so your opponent is gonna have like HAND(Land, land, threat, threat, threat, removal, other) or (land, land, land, Serum Visions, Removal, discard/removal, Combo Piece). You want your deck to be able to stumble through turns 1-4 in your bad draws by setting up for Herder/Strangler turns, or Lingering souls turns. Your great draws are way less frequent because (EYE, Ugin, Temple, Herder)...still requires an early process.
With 3 eye, you'll get plenty of Eye + Temple = turn 2 TKS. That opening happens fairly frequently, but it doesn't win the game the way your linear opponent's decks will.
If you're looking for simple spot removal swap, try:
-1 or -2 Oblivion Sower
+1 Go for the Throat or +1 Doom Blade.
Although you have All is Dust, which synergizes with less spot removal and more ramp.
I've also found the Oblivion Ring pretty consistent to help exile if you're short on process effects. It happens to hit Finks/Voice as Path #5 where exile does matter. Hits Cranial Plating, Tsagur, Ensnaring Bridge, Blood Moon too. ANTI-synergy with All is Dust.
5 discard +3 TKS = 8 discard effects. I never liked to go above 7, even in Jund/Abzan. Drop a IoK or Thoughtseize if you're looking for another cut.
Sideboard looks solid.
I diversify my answers up a bit to keep opponent guessing, but that's a preference.
What are the Ratchet Bombs for?
The Oblivion Ring might be more useful than All Is Dust for me in certain matches (Affinity), but I didn't see a lot of those in my meta when I played so I guess I'll just keep that in mind.
Cutting a discard effect sounds great actually, I hadn't thought of that. As for the Sower, I'm less certain. Sure, they end up being sided out on faster matches anyway, but I'm not sure about runing less than 4. Maybe I'll try it at 3 and see how it goes.
Ratchet Bombs are in the place of Engineered Explosives for now since I haven't been able to get them yet. They're slower but less mana intensive, though Explosives are probably better anyway and I'll switch them when I get the chance.
Your decklist looks great, but one thing I'm curious about are the Matter Reshapers. Do you usually hit stuff with them? I had assumed they would just miss most of the time, and end up being a 3 mana cantrip which is kinda lackluster. There's a synergy going on there with O-Ring though which is nice I guess.
I'm glad someone else has been having success with a build that's tilting towards what I was trying to argue for a few pages back. I've had some nice results in testing playing super fair by cutting Oblivion Sower altogether. Oblivion Ring is a great idea, and helps us further the analogy between Jund/Abzan that I was trying to make before. It's like our Maelstrom Pulse and it doesn't suck now that Abrupt Decay is even worse than it used to be. For reference, what I've been running is:
4 Eldrazi Temple
2 Eye of Ugin
2 Urborg, Tomb to Yawgmoth
4 Caves of Koilos
4 Marsh Flats
2 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Godless Shrine
2 Shambling Vent
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Vault of the Archangel
Creatures (19)
4 Lingering Souls
4 Wasteland Strangler
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Blight Herder
2 Spellskite
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Relic of Progenitus
4 Path to Exile
2 Disfigure
1 Oblivion Ring
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
3 Stony Silence
2 Reality Smasher
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Disenchant
1 Damnation
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Ghost Quarter
My land base is still a lot safer and more conservative than most people's lists, and I'm kind of tired of arguing about that, so take it or leave it, but as far as the spells are concerned, here are a few observations I've had:
1) Turn 1 discard is still really important. You can't exactly treat TKS as counting towards your discard. TKS's effect is terrific, but you need enough early disruption in the first few turns of the game to survive, and TKS is sometimes too late. I don't like cutting these down to make room for Thought-Knot.
2) Spellskite into Thought-Knot is often extremely backbreaking. Spellskite is really well positioned now that Infect and Burn are on the uptick with Twin's demise, so I think it's right to maindeck these.
3) You just don't need Oblivion Sower or Expedition Map in this deck to get to Ulamog. This deck is so good at playing the fair midrange game even without Temple or Eye that you just reliably get to enough land drops + Blight Herder tokens to make Ulamog happen. I can't emphasize this enough given how bad Expedition Map is as a late game topdeck.
4) Blood Moon does not cripple this deck because everything is just inherently castable and I run 4 fetches. Spreading Seas on a Temple or Eye is far from impactful. I've won through triple Spreading Seas in testing.
I think I actually have to change a few cards in my deck list. It's based off a list from over a month ago and I haven't changed anything but Thought-Knot Seer.
2 Swamp
2 Plains
3 Godless Shrine
2 Temple of Silence
2 Shambling Vent
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Blight Herder
3 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Oblivion Sower
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Path to Exile
1 Slaughter Pact
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Scrabbling Claws
4 Lingering Souls
1 Go for the Throat
2 Thoughtseize
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Spellskite
1 Slaughter Pact
3 Timely Reinforcements
2 Disenchant
2 Celestial Purge
2 Damnation
1 Duress
I'm probably going to take out 1 Godless Shrine, 1 Temple of Silence, and 1 Shambling Vents for 3 Marsh Flats.
Premodern - Trix, RecSur, Enchantress, Reanimator, Elves https://www.facebook.com/groups/PremodernUSA/
Modern - Neobrand, Hogaak Vine, Elves
Standard - Mono Red (6-2 and 5-3 in 2 McQ)
Draft - (I wish I had more time for limited...)
Commander -
Norin the Wary, Grimgrin, Adun Oakenshield (taking forever to build)(dead format for me)Thanks. Can you post what changes you are thinking of making? Also what SB do you run? This list looks great!
2 Swamp
2 Plains
2 Godless Shrine
2 Shambling Vent
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Marsh Flats
1 Vault of the Archangel
Creatures - 13
4 Wasteland Strangler
4 Blight Herder
4 Oblivion Sower
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
4 Path to Exile
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Dismember
4 Lingering Souls
1 Go for the Throat
2 Thoughtseize
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
Artifacts - 6
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Expedition Map
2 Stony Silence
2 Spellskite
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Disenchant
2 Celestial Purge
1 Ratchet Bomb
1 All is Dust
1 Surgical Extraction
1 Ghost Quarter
With this list, in 25+ people Modern Mondays I have managed to go:
4-0, 3-0-1, 3-1, 4-0, 3-0-1
And now with my new oath list with only results from yesterday's FNM:
3-1 for 2nd place. Turns out that place has a lot of burn decks and I won 2-0 to burn first round and lost 1-2 to burn last round. Beating GR Tron on my 2nd round and affinity on 3rd round.
4 Eldrazi Temple
3 Eye of Ugin
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Vault of the Archangel
2 Swamp
1 Plains
2 Godless Shrine
4 Caves of Koilos
1 Shambling Vent
2 Marsh Flats
Creatures - 16
2 Thought-Knot Seer
2 Reality Smasher
1 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger
3 Oblivion Sower
4 Wasteland Strangler
4 Blight Herder
4 Lingering Souls
4 Path to Exile
1 Dismember
1 Go for the Throat
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
Artifacts - 4
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Stony Silence
1 Celestial Purge
2 Disenchant
2 Surgical Extraction
1 All Is Dust
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Spellskite
2 Flaying Tendrils
1 Eldrazi Displacer
In all my matches, I only saw one TKS, so I can't really say much about it. Smasher did wonders against Tron. Displacer was a godsent against affinity and allowed me to stabilize at 1 hp until I was able to start healing up with vault. Blinking and tapping the flyers, removing ravager counters, taking off plating and throwing a stony silence after... boy that was magical. I'm thinking about putting at least one into the mainboard as he's an amazing mid/late game draw, though a bit less useful early on since he doesn't do anything as he enters the battlefiend. Tendrils were amazing wipes vs affinity.