I started looking into Whispers because I was working on a BUG Shadow list splashing red for TBR and K-Command (I posted the first rough list a couple pages ago) that was a bit better at getting delirium. I didn't go all the way to Thought Scour because I found that all I really needed was more instants that weren't removal, so I was playing Opt. I could see Scour being the better choice if you're really trying to land a turn 2 Whispers, though. The mana base felt really shaky, much moreso than the normal 5c version, because you're equally dependent on blue and green and that makes 1 hand lands very difficult to navigate. Maybe a delirium-focused, true BUG version is the way to build that color combination? I think it's as hard to leave TBR behind as it is Stubborn Denial, though. :/
Another reason I got onto Whispers was some discussion on the Jund boards about Todd Stevens not liking Liliana of the Veil against true control decks because they'll often have more cards in hand than we will after she's played and activated, which I think is even more true for this deck than traditional Jund. With that in mind, I was looking for something that could attack an opponent's hand, ideally snipe multiple cards, and not affect my own resources.
Stubborn Denial has been a very hard card to give up, and I've also really been missing Disdainful Stroke. I'm looking to play in the Modern Classic at the SCG event in King of Prussia at the end of the month and am finding it impossible to settle on a list.
Maybe I'll see you there.
I honestly have been playing every flavor of GBx deciding what to play.
The amount of time we end up in topdeck mode in grindy matchups makes me not a fan of Mentor or Pyro. I'd rather have immediate value.
I want Pyro to be a good card in modern, but I don't really think the tools are there. Losing Probe hurt a lot. In Grixis I tried it as a SB card like most people, but I still like Pia and Kiran Nalaar better in that slot for most purposes.
that's a fair point - it does make theoretical sense in that a mentor can win the game very quickly by himself with the deck's density of 1cmc spells and it's not unreasonable to be holding discard spells/kill spells when you topdeck a mentor in the late game grindfest to get immediate value. I do like the added benefit of attacking on a different axis than goyfs/traverse/half of souls vs. GY hate
I beat Jeskai (the Benjamin Nikolich list), Grixis Shadow, and Bring to Light Scapeshift. My loss was to Tron, though my second game felt like I had the tools to win but I played completely wrong from the start. The list felt really good and the mana was much better than I thought it would be. I'm going to try playing it at my normal weekly on Monday and if it still holds up I'll likely play this in the Classic.
I beat Jeskai (the Benjamin Nikolich list), Grixis Shadow, and Bring to Light Scapeshift. My loss was to Tron, though my second game felt like I had the tools to win but I played completely wrong from the start. The list felt really good and the mana was much better than I thought it would be. I'm going to try playing it at my normal weekly on Monday and if it still holds up I'll likely play this in the Classic.
I'm the one who originally posted that list on reddit a few weeks back. Glad you liked it. I am curious how you thought the Liliana's did. I have replaced them with a 2nd dismember and a 3rd Stubborn Denial because they just felt kind of slow for the deck in the main board.
I also would recommend replacing the Bloodstained Mires with Misty Rainforests. They smooth your mana out even better.
Oh cool, great work on the list. Liliana was fine, but she might not be necessary in the main. The only game 1 where I drew her was against Grixis Shadow, and she just got Thoughtseized. She did help to pave the way for Hazoret against Jeskai, so I'd like to still have access to her in the 75. When I originally saw your list I actually spent a bunch of time moving cards around and messing with numbers just to see how things looked, and the first thing I did was move her to the sideboard. I ended up moving her back to the main because I was looking to free up some sideboard slots, but after playing last night I did find myself wanting to find room for a 3rd Stubborn Denial in the main so maybe I do need to kick her back out. At one point I had both Liliana's in the sideboard and had replaced them with a K-Command and a Stub, which didn't seem too bad on paper. I do agree that a second Dismember is probably necessary if I don't have any Liliana's in the main, though.
The Mire's are purely a budget concession, I wanted to try out the deck before committing to buying Rainforests.
When you have hands with a single fetchland and a Traverse, which lands are you fetching/traversing for? At first I was grabbing Overgrown Tomb and Traversing for the Island, but after fetching for Breeding Pool and Traversing for Swamp it felt like a better configuration.
Yup, Decay was the big impetus for me to try the Pool/Swamp combo.
It was pretty funny to see people try to figure out what kind of Shadow deck I was playing. I got a nice eyebrow raise after going turn 1 Watery Grave, cycle Wraith, Opt, then turn 2 Breeding Pool into Tarmogoyf.
Have you felt like the 6 discard spells was enough? I found myself considering a 7th because there were a couple games where I either wasn't seeing enough of them, or any at all.
6 feels a bit light but with snapcaster, opt and the extra stubborn it usually feels sufficient. Not to mention, I feel like flooding out on discard late game happens less often.
One of the top items on my list of things to try is a Sultai + splash red list (with or without white in the SB) that is much heavier on the blue than usual which looks similar to this list, except I want to try Deprive. The drawback is heavily mitigated, especially since we don't rely on Snapcaster Mage (though I'd be tempted to try 1 or 2), and is even a positive when you're looking for more ways to lose life. Getting the mana to work will be a challenge though, because UU is so demanding.
I've also tried just playing Mana Leak in a more typical build (e.g. replace 1 IoK and 1 LotV with 2 Mana Leak in the last list I posted) and it was fine but unspectacular, which probably tells me that Deprive won't be worth it. But as long as I've got nothing better to do, I'll probably keep trying these things
@DeFish I am running the exact list you posted except -2 Liliana, -3 Bloodstained Mire, +1 Dismember, +1 Stubborn, +3 Misty Rainforests.
I have been running 1 Deprive in the side as its great in certain matchups.
I am really thinking about cutting a disdainful stroke and putting in a 2nd Deprive in the side.
Its great vs:
Tron (especially good for countering Ulamog and saving a land)
Control (Bounce a land that got spreading sea-ed)
Valakut
Storm
Have you found the UU to be an issue? It was one of the first cards I took out of the sideboard because it seemed too hard on the manabase, but I didn't realize at the time how blue-heavy a lot of your common mana configurations end up being.
@Spooly Highly recommend Snapcaster, Snap -> Traverse is great and I think that it allows you to build a sideboard without white that still lets you win grindy matchups.
Have you found the UU to be an issue? It was one of the first cards I took out of the sideboard because it seemed too hard on the manabase, but I didn't realize at the time how blue-heavy a lot of your common mana configurations end up being.
@Spooly Highly recommend Snapcaster, Snap -> Traverse is great and I think that it allows you to build a sideboard without white that still lets you win grindy matchups.
That's the main reason why I want Snapcaster. But I tried him before in this shell and didn't really like him. But I didn't have Opts (or other cheap cantrips) to give him more targets.
I have not had many issues getting UU. Sometimes when I get stuck on 1-2 lands it happens, however I am probably not winning that game anyways.
Getting stuck on 2 lands happens a lot in the typical shells, and getting 2 black sources or all 4 colors of mana is usually the priority. Getting double blue for Deprive will be typically be a much lower priority. And we can (and should be able to) win with only 2 lands. We wouldn't play 18 lands otherwise. Opt helps this some, but we're still putting more pressure on the mana.
Getting stuck on 2 lands happens a lot in the typical shells, and getting 2 black sources or all 4 colors of mana is usually the priority. Getting double blue for Deprive will be typically be a much lower priority. And we can (and should be able to) win with only 2 lands. We wouldn't play 18 lands otherwise. Opt helps this some, but we're still putting more pressure on the mana.
This is probably the biggest issue. 5c feels like it can and does win with only 2 lands. This version loses a lot of power if it doesn't find the 3rd land just because of the need for mana to power the cantrips, snaps and stubborns.
I didn't actually get to play it, but I can at least speak to why I included it in the first place.
I like it against the current Jeskai and UW Control lists because it can interact with all of their best forms of interaction against us. It can blank Supreme Verdict (which they lean on heavily in this matchup), can hit Search for Azcanta or Detention Sphere, and can wipe tokens created by Secure the Wastes and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. It becomes even better when you're able to flash it back with Snapcaster. Shadow decks in general can struggle to deal with go-wide strategies (or Empty the Warrens), and the low mana cost means that you can either play it alongside a Shadow on turn 3, or use it turn 2 to try to stunt your opponent's early game if you have a slower hand. It's also an additional hedge against Blood Moon and Blood Sun (since we have to deal with that now).
I didn't side out Snap in the games I played the other night, and I really can't think of any matchup where I would.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Maybe I'll see you there.
I honestly have been playing every flavor of GBx deciding what to play.
I want Pyro to be a good card in modern, but I don't really think the tools are there. Losing Probe hurt a lot. In Grixis I tried it as a SB card like most people, but I still like Pia and Kiran Nalaar better in that slot for most purposes.
1x Blood Crypt
3x Bloodstained Mire
1x Breeding Pool
1x Island
1x Overgrown Tomb
4x Polluted Delta
1x Steam Vents
1x Swamp
4x Verdant Catacombs
1x Watery Grave
Sorcery (8)
2x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Thoughtseize
2x Traverse the Ulvenwald
2x Abrupt Decay
1x Dismember
3x Fatal Push
4x Opt
2x Stubborn Denial
2x Temur Battle Rage
Creature (14)
4x Death's Shadow
2x Snapcaster Mage
4x Street Wraith
4x Tarmogoyf
Artifact (4)
4x Mishra's Bauble
Planeswalker (2)
2x Liliana of the Veil
1x Ancient Grudge
2x Ceremonious Rejection
2x Collective Brutality
1x Disdainful Stroke
1x Golgari Charm
1x Hazoret the Fervent
1x Izzet Staticaster
2x Kolaghan's Command
1x Liliana's Defeat
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Radiant Flames
1x Stubborn Denial
I beat Jeskai (the Benjamin Nikolich list), Grixis Shadow, and Bring to Light Scapeshift. My loss was to Tron, though my second game felt like I had the tools to win but I played completely wrong from the start. The list felt really good and the mana was much better than I thought it would be. I'm going to try playing it at my normal weekly on Monday and if it still holds up I'll likely play this in the Classic.
I'm the one who originally posted that list on reddit a few weeks back. Glad you liked it. I am curious how you thought the Liliana's did. I have replaced them with a 2nd dismember and a 3rd Stubborn Denial because they just felt kind of slow for the deck in the main board.
I also would recommend replacing the Bloodstained Mires with Misty Rainforests. They smooth your mana out even better.
The Mire's are purely a budget concession, I wanted to try out the deck before committing to buying Rainforests.
When you have hands with a single fetchland and a Traverse, which lands are you fetching/traversing for? At first I was grabbing Overgrown Tomb and Traversing for the Island, but after fetching for Breeding Pool and Traversing for Swamp it felt like a better configuration.
Not to mention first turn misty rainforest can make our opponent think we are playing infect.
It was pretty funny to see people try to figure out what kind of Shadow deck I was playing. I got a nice eyebrow raise after going turn 1 Watery Grave, cycle Wraith, Opt, then turn 2 Breeding Pool into Tarmogoyf.
Have you felt like the 6 discard spells was enough? I found myself considering a 7th because there were a couple games where I either wasn't seeing enough of them, or any at all.
Are you still playing this version of the deck? Would you mind posting you current list, if so?
I've also tried just playing Mana Leak in a more typical build (e.g. replace 1 IoK and 1 LotV with 2 Mana Leak in the last list I posted) and it was fine but unspectacular, which probably tells me that Deprive won't be worth it. But as long as I've got nothing better to do, I'll probably keep trying these things
I have been running 1 Deprive in the side as its great in certain matchups.
I am really thinking about cutting a disdainful stroke and putting in a 2nd Deprive in the side.
Its great vs:
Tron (especially good for countering Ulamog and saving a land)
Control (Bounce a land that got spreading sea-ed)
Valakut
Storm
@Spooly Highly recommend Snapcaster, Snap -> Traverse is great and I think that it allows you to build a sideboard without white that still lets you win grindy matchups.
That's the main reason why I want Snapcaster. But I tried him before in this shell and didn't really like him. But I didn't have Opts (or other cheap cantrips) to give him more targets.
Getting stuck on 2 lands happens a lot in the typical shells, and getting 2 black sources or all 4 colors of mana is usually the priority. Getting double blue for Deprive will be typically be a much lower priority. And we can (and should be able to) win with only 2 lands. We wouldn't play 18 lands otherwise. Opt helps this some, but we're still putting more pressure on the mana.
This is probably the biggest issue. 5c feels like it can and does win with only 2 lands. This version loses a lot of power if it doesn't find the 3rd land just because of the need for mana to power the cantrips, snaps and stubborns.
I like it against the current Jeskai and UW Control lists because it can interact with all of their best forms of interaction against us. It can blank Supreme Verdict (which they lean on heavily in this matchup), can hit Search for Azcanta or Detention Sphere, and can wipe tokens created by Secure the Wastes and Elspeth, Sun's Champion. It becomes even better when you're able to flash it back with Snapcaster. Shadow decks in general can struggle to deal with go-wide strategies (or Empty the Warrens), and the low mana cost means that you can either play it alongside a Shadow on turn 3, or use it turn 2 to try to stunt your opponent's early game if you have a slower hand. It's also an additional hedge against Blood Moon and Blood Sun (since we have to deal with that now).
I didn't side out Snap in the games I played the other night, and I really can't think of any matchup where I would.