Congrats JBlackmor. I love reading tournament reports and do them myself usually as well. You're really lucky that you get to play in that GP. I may end up flying out there, but since it is on my birthday, family may be too pissed.
Regarding Dredge. I truly believe that the matchup is nearly 55/45 for us, but my judgment could be clouded by the fact that I've switched decks a bunch recently and all of them smash on Dredge coincidentally. Like you said, Anger of the Gods is nuts against them. They don't have any interaction, so it's just a race. Well, they probably put in some Gnaw to the Bone, so watch for that. If you have Relic of Progenitus as a 2 of at least, I feel you're favored. Our LGS has a Dredge player who has been tearing it up, but he has not beaten TitanShift yet (in around 5 tries). The other Dredge players are not quite as good, and I don't think they've beaten Titan Shift yet (at least at our LGS, outside of it, who knows?).
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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)
Congrats on another top 8. And my experience in the Dredge match is that an Anger of the Gods wins the game unless they have a Gargadon suspended and sac their board.
Also, speaking of your Bogles and Affinity matches, I have considered running Fracturing gust in the board for those two matchups since we can cast it turn 3 off of SfT and any 2 drop ramp. It also helps a bit against tron hypothetically. I am gonna stick with my Nature's Claims for now because they don't interrupt our game plan as much.
Congrats man!! I also love reading tournament reports... Especially with this deck! Honoestly, in my experience dredge is an extremely favorable matchup as I have not lost to it yet in quite a few rounds of testing. HOWEVER, this is before the new Cartharic Reunion got printed, so I need to evaluate the matchup again. Dredge players I have talked to have said that the matchup is still favorable for us, but they are slightly faster then before.
I'm using 3-3 on Stomping Ground/Glades because I've often had hands that I needed the turn 1 untapped green and only had a Glade that could generate green. That slowed me down a lot. The 3-3 split is running good so far.
1 Baloth 1 Courser main are fine. I like having a Baloth as having acces to lifegain on G1 is nice and Courser can provide advantage in longer games.
4 Farseek - 3 Explore because I think Farseek is a more consistent ramp spell. Explore often made me play the land that I had for the next turn, so I wasn't getting that much value outside of the draw effect. It's very good with Courser on the field, but overall I think that 4 Farseek is a little better.
Dredge is the other deck I own in paper and play quite a bit, Titanshift is heavily favoured against the non garg version and about 50/50 against the garg version. However never playing against dredge before is what makes/made dredge such a good deck so with some practice these numbers will prove true. If your playing against dredge a lot I would run 2 relics or cages in the SB if not 4 Anger of the Gods is plenty to take care of the more popular non gargadon dredge.
I'm going to playtest a full playset of Tireless tracker in the main and see how I like it.
I actually wanted to test a singleton Tireless Tracker in the SB, but haven't gotten around to it yet. It seems like it would slow us down, but let us know how it goes.
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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)
2-0 vs Grixis Delver
G1 He played and early Tasigur that I chumped with STE on the first attack. He followed with Pyromancer and Delver that both met an Anger of my own. He could hit me a couple times with Tasigur but I managed to slip in a Titan that got 2 Valakuts (with 5 mountains already in play). He killed it and I had Pact + Scapeshift to follow up. Decided to go with Scapeshift instead of Pact+Titan, as I could pay for Mana Leak if he had it. He didn't, I won.
G2 I had no removal but had 2 Fogs in my hand. He flipped an early Delver and I tried to sneak in a Baloth that he Mana Leaked (had seen the Mana Leak from the Delver trigger). Fogged the first time an attack from Delver + Snap with 6 lands in play. Played my 7th land and tried to Scapeshift, that he Snap + Mana Leaked and then he attacks for 7 dmg, meeting my 2nd Fog. Next turn I had a second Scapeshift in hand that sealed the game.
2-1 vs Jund
G1 he started off with IoK taking out my STE, since he couldn't take my Scapeshift. I went Explore drawing a Courser and my 3rd land. He drew another IoK and took ou my Courser. Liliana came in on his next turn and that put pressure on my hand. I drew a Titan with 5 lands (2 forests 1 valakut on board) and choose to discard it to Lili, since it would be too hard to get the Valakuts going, but with only Shift in hand it became too hard to win. Tried to Scapeshift into Valakut and 4 mountains to make it better for a possible Titan but he played some Goyfs and I couldn't last long.
G2 he played Liliana +1 into a Baloth. Baloth took down his Lili and I held the 2nd one in hand, just in case. He played Pulse on Baloth and I felt smart. Hardcasted the 2nd Baloth and that gave me time to Scapeshift for the win.
G3 he had an early Bob that I didn't have a way to kill. He followed with Lili +1 that got another Baloth out for me. Attacked Lili with STE + Baloth and he let her die. He followed with Huntmaster going to 19 and I Scapeshifted 7 lands leaving him on 1 life and only 1 Mountain still in my deck. Attacked with the Baloth that traded for Huntmaster + wolf (his Bob was tapped from attacking me last turn) and I passed the turn with Bolt in hand. He Crumbled my Valakut and scooped when he saw the Bolt.
2-1 vs Naya Allies
G1 I could have won if I was on the play. Bolted a turn 1 Champion of the Parish and had an early Valakut active. He casted Company before attacking and I had STE on board. He had 2 allies that pumped themselves and one ally that gives Lifelink to all his creatures. I decided to sac the STE and kill the lifelink ally before the Company. He found another one that grows and one that gives protection from colors (so, saccing the STE was a good idea, since he wouldn't be able to block). Died one turn later when I only had a 2nd Valakut + Search to do 6 damage to stuff and no matter how I did it, I still was dead on board.
G2 had a hand with Anger and 2 Bolts. He never had much on board and was an easy Scapeshift for the win.
G3 I had ramp, Fog and 2 Titans. Started of ramping and killing an early guy with Bolt. When he tried to attack me for 5 I Fogged. Played my 5th land and passed. He attacks me for 10 and I Fog again, followin with Titan killing 2 of his dudes. I blocked his 5/5 with Titan in his next attack and he Paths before damage, which allows me to kill his other dude and shoot 3 on his face. Then I follow with another Titan for the win.
0-2 vs RG Ponza
G1 Turn 3 Blood Moon. I had my 3 Forests on play this game, managed to stick a Courser and Baloth but he had Stormbreath Dragon that I could do nothing about.
G2 Almost got there. Saw no Moon and managed to slip a Titan that shoot his Inferno Titan and got him to 12 life, I was already at 4 at this point. He then drew the Moon and I attacked him down to 6. He drew a land and was able to Bonfire me exactly for lethal.
RG Ponza feels unwinnable for us. I'm thinking if it's not worth it to run some numbers of Beast Withins in the maindeck, as it gives us answers to a lot of stuff (like Moon, Inferno Titan and Stormbreath in this match, or even a land with Utopia Sprawl).
So i have another CRAZY idea....what if we cut one copy of scapeshift? like the way twin sometimes only played three cops of splinter twin back in the day.
sometimes i draw to many copies of scapeshift and you only need the one. so with tireless tracker giving a way for us to draw cards do you think we could go down a copy to smooth out the draws?
just an idea let me know what you think.
Been testing this for about two weeks. Actually just bought the deck on MTGO yesterday, played practice games for about 5 hours, seems to be pretty strong. The Madcap Experiment revealing Platinum Emperion for no life loss since your life total can't change is great as a turn 3 play, I mean a 4 mana 8/8 with a powerful static ability isn't bad at all really. You buy yourself time to get into your titans/scapeshift/valakut triggers. In games that go longer I ended up hard casting them semi-frequently. A number of decks get shut down hard until they find unconditional/relavent removal, useful against other Valakut decks, Dredge, Affinity, Boggles, Death's Shadow Zoo, Eldrazi, Kiki variants, and fringe decks like 8 Rack, ect.
its not bad, but cut a land and put in kessig wolf run so you are giving that platinum emperion trample. hypothetically it, plus wolf run pumps is 10+ damage a turn so that might end the game on its own.
So i have another CRAZY idea....what if we cut one copy of scapeshift? like the way twin sometimes only played three cops of splinter twin back in the day.
sometimes i draw to many copies of scapeshift and you only need the one. so with tireless tracker giving a way for us to draw cards do you think we could go down a copy to smooth out the draws?
just an idea let me know what you think.
it might have an impact, but only on the scapeshift side.
I think of the deck as running 8 slots for game enders. 4 titan 4 shift. taking one game ender away feels like it weakens the deck. unlike twin our ramp becomes more and more useless as the game goes on. twin had dig spells, burn spells and lots of interaction that had value later in the game. we need to land our enders and hope they get the job done, otherwise a prolonged game becomes more and more unwinnable for our kind of combo.
Hey guys.
What is the average number of ramp spells we should aim to have on the maindeck?
Also, we're Tier 2 according to Modern Nexus. Hope that we have some more numbers at the end of this month.
12-14 ramp spells would be my guess. I guess it depends on how much midgame defense you're running as well. (Ob Baloth, Bolt, Anger, etc.)
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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)
How do you feel about 4 Search for Tomorrow, 4 Sakura Tribe-Elder, and 4-6 Farseek/Explore?
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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)
ya drop down to 0, there are better ramp cards you can run in that spot. 12 ramp is pretty optimal. 4 SFT 4 STE and 4 Farseek/KHE/other Sometimes people go up to 14 with 2 others. Personally I run 14 total. my last 2 being recross the path.
it would be the spot i'd put courser of kruphix so you can filter out your draws.
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Regarding Dredge. I truly believe that the matchup is nearly 55/45 for us, but my judgment could be clouded by the fact that I've switched decks a bunch recently and all of them smash on Dredge coincidentally. Like you said, Anger of the Gods is nuts against them. They don't have any interaction, so it's just a race. Well, they probably put in some Gnaw to the Bone, so watch for that. If you have Relic of Progenitus as a 2 of at least, I feel you're favored. Our LGS has a Dredge player who has been tearing it up, but he has not beaten TitanShift yet (in around 5 tries). The other Dredge players are not quite as good, and I don't think they've beaten Titan Shift yet (at least at our LGS, outside of it, who knows?).
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)Also, speaking of your Bogles and Affinity matches, I have considered running Fracturing gust in the board for those two matchups since we can cast it turn 3 off of SfT and any 2 drop ramp. It also helps a bit against tron hypothetically. I am gonna stick with my Nature's Claims for now because they don't interrupt our game plan as much.
Marath, Will of the Wild Tokens!! / Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund Dragons! / Muzzio, Visionary Architect / Brago, King Eternal / Daretti, Scrap Savant / Narset, Enlightened Master / Alesha, Who Smiles at Death / Bruna, Light of Alabaster / Marchesa, the Black Rose / Iroas, God of Victory / Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury / Omnath, Locus of rage / Titania, Protector of Argoth / Kozilek, the Great Distortion
Modern
Elves / Titanshift / Merfolk
Congrats man!! I also love reading tournament reports... Especially with this deck! Honoestly, in my experience dredge is an extremely favorable matchup as I have not lost to it yet in quite a few rounds of testing. HOWEVER, this is before the new Cartharic Reunion got printed, so I need to evaluate the matchup again. Dredge players I have talked to have said that the matchup is still favorable for us, but they are slightly faster then before.
4 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
3 Cinder Glade
3 Stomping Ground
7 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
4 Primeval Titan
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Courser of Kruphix
Spells (23)
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Farseek
3 Explore
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Anger of the Gods
4 Scapeshift
2 Summoner's Pact
I'm using 3-3 on Stomping Ground/Glades because I've often had hands that I needed the turn 1 untapped green and only had a Glade that could generate green. That slowed me down a lot. The 3-3 split is running good so far.
1 Baloth 1 Courser main are fine. I like having a Baloth as having acces to lifegain on G1 is nice and Courser can provide advantage in longer games.
4 Farseek - 3 Explore because I think Farseek is a more consistent ramp spell. Explore often made me play the land that I had for the next turn, so I wasn't getting that much value outside of the draw effect. It's very good with Courser on the field, but overall I think that 4 Farseek is a little better.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
I actually wanted to test a singleton Tireless Tracker in the SB, but haven't gotten around to it yet. It seems like it would slow us down, but let us know how it goes.
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)4 Wooded Foothills
3 Windswept Heath
3 Cinder Glade
3 Stomping Ground
7 Mountain
3 Forest
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Creatures (10)
4 Primeval Titan
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Courser of Kruphix
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Farseek
3 Explore
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Anger of the Gods
4 Scapeshift
2 Summoner's Pact
3 Obstinate Baloth
2 Fog
3 Nature's Claim
1 Anger of the Gods
2 Sudden Shock
2 Crumble to Dust
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2-0 vs Grixis Delver
G1 He played and early Tasigur that I chumped with STE on the first attack. He followed with Pyromancer and Delver that both met an Anger of my own. He could hit me a couple times with Tasigur but I managed to slip in a Titan that got 2 Valakuts (with 5 mountains already in play). He killed it and I had Pact + Scapeshift to follow up. Decided to go with Scapeshift instead of Pact+Titan, as I could pay for Mana Leak if he had it. He didn't, I won.
G2 I had no removal but had 2 Fogs in my hand. He flipped an early Delver and I tried to sneak in a Baloth that he Mana Leaked (had seen the Mana Leak from the Delver trigger). Fogged the first time an attack from Delver + Snap with 6 lands in play. Played my 7th land and tried to Scapeshift, that he Snap + Mana Leaked and then he attacks for 7 dmg, meeting my 2nd Fog. Next turn I had a second Scapeshift in hand that sealed the game.
2-1 vs Jund
G1 he started off with IoK taking out my STE, since he couldn't take my Scapeshift. I went Explore drawing a Courser and my 3rd land. He drew another IoK and took ou my Courser. Liliana came in on his next turn and that put pressure on my hand. I drew a Titan with 5 lands (2 forests 1 valakut on board) and choose to discard it to Lili, since it would be too hard to get the Valakuts going, but with only Shift in hand it became too hard to win. Tried to Scapeshift into Valakut and 4 mountains to make it better for a possible Titan but he played some Goyfs and I couldn't last long.
G2 he played Liliana +1 into a Baloth. Baloth took down his Lili and I held the 2nd one in hand, just in case. He played Pulse on Baloth and I felt smart. Hardcasted the 2nd Baloth and that gave me time to Scapeshift for the win.
G3 he had an early Bob that I didn't have a way to kill. He followed with Lili +1 that got another Baloth out for me. Attacked Lili with STE + Baloth and he let her die. He followed with Huntmaster going to 19 and I Scapeshifted 7 lands leaving him on 1 life and only 1 Mountain still in my deck. Attacked with the Baloth that traded for Huntmaster + wolf (his Bob was tapped from attacking me last turn) and I passed the turn with Bolt in hand. He Crumbled my Valakut and scooped when he saw the Bolt.
2-1 vs Naya Allies
G1 I could have won if I was on the play. Bolted a turn 1 Champion of the Parish and had an early Valakut active. He casted Company before attacking and I had STE on board. He had 2 allies that pumped themselves and one ally that gives Lifelink to all his creatures. I decided to sac the STE and kill the lifelink ally before the Company. He found another one that grows and one that gives protection from colors (so, saccing the STE was a good idea, since he wouldn't be able to block). Died one turn later when I only had a 2nd Valakut + Search to do 6 damage to stuff and no matter how I did it, I still was dead on board.
G2 had a hand with Anger and 2 Bolts. He never had much on board and was an easy Scapeshift for the win.
G3 I had ramp, Fog and 2 Titans. Started of ramping and killing an early guy with Bolt. When he tried to attack me for 5 I Fogged. Played my 5th land and passed. He attacks me for 10 and I Fog again, followin with Titan killing 2 of his dudes. I blocked his 5/5 with Titan in his next attack and he Paths before damage, which allows me to kill his other dude and shoot 3 on his face. Then I follow with another Titan for the win.
0-2 vs RG Ponza
G1 Turn 3 Blood Moon. I had my 3 Forests on play this game, managed to stick a Courser and Baloth but he had Stormbreath Dragon that I could do nothing about.
G2 Almost got there. Saw no Moon and managed to slip a Titan that shoot his Inferno Titan and got him to 12 life, I was already at 4 at this point. He then drew the Moon and I attacked him down to 6. He drew a land and was able to Bonfire me exactly for lethal.
RG Ponza feels unwinnable for us. I'm thinking if it's not worth it to run some numbers of Beast Withins in the maindeck, as it gives us answers to a lot of stuff (like Moon, Inferno Titan and Stormbreath in this match, or even a land with Utopia Sprawl).
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
sometimes i draw to many copies of scapeshift and you only need the one. so with tireless tracker giving a way for us to draw cards do you think we could go down a copy to smooth out the draws?
just an idea let me know what you think.
no one running the madcap+ emperion combo?
it might have an impact, but only on the scapeshift side.
I think of the deck as running 8 slots for game enders. 4 titan 4 shift. taking one game ender away feels like it weakens the deck. unlike twin our ramp becomes more and more useless as the game goes on. twin had dig spells, burn spells and lots of interaction that had value later in the game. we need to land our enders and hope they get the job done, otherwise a prolonged game becomes more and more unwinnable for our kind of combo.
What is the average number of ramp spells we should aim to have on the maindeck?
Also, we're Tier 2 according to Modern Nexus. Hope that we have some more numbers at the end of this month.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
12-14 ramp spells would be my guess. I guess it depends on how much midgame defense you're running as well. (Ob Baloth, Bolt, Anger, etc.)
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)WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
How do you feel about 4 Search for Tomorrow, 4 Sakura Tribe-Elder, and 4-6 Farseek/Explore?
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'm thinking about cutting 1 Explore for another Baloth maindeck.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
or even running recross the paths can do a lot of good as well.
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
WGUBR 5c Humans
GWR Naya Zoo
Legacy:
GW GW Maverick
R Goblins
ya drop down to 0, there are better ramp cards you can run in that spot. 12 ramp is pretty optimal. 4 SFT 4 STE and 4 Farseek/KHE/other Sometimes people go up to 14 with 2 others. Personally I run 14 total. my last 2 being recross the path.
it would be the spot i'd put courser of kruphix so you can filter out your draws.