This is the list I've been testing. I haven't figured out what to do with my last 2 sideboard slots. I've been testing against Mono Blue a decent amount and I think it's actually pretty difficult matchup game 1. We don't run enough removal to really punish them. A few 1 for 1's isn't going to do it. Mind you the deck completely folds to sweepers so my sideboard plan has been decent. I was considering playing Mistcutter Hydra but I don't even think it's necessary. I'm not too sure on the whole Xenagos plan. It seems reasonable. So does Whip in some matchups. Xenagos does do enough for me not to be playing Exava though.
I'm not sure if 2 or 3 or Reaper or Varolz is correct. They are sort of similar cards. Varolz is very good but not in multiples.. Reaper is alright. Polukranus might be the right move. Reapers Hexproof and Scry are very useful in some matchups but in a lot of ways the deck is looking for more mana sinks.
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Went 4-1 tonight with this list, beating RDW twice and GW aggro twice, while losing to mono-U devotion due to epic land screw. I'll discuss MVPs and dead cards below.
Obviously, against 5 straight aggro decks Rakdos' Return felt like a dead draw, but it honestly is a gamechanger against midrange and control, and it actually won me a game 1 against GW aggro when I was able to take out 3 cards before dropping a scavenging ooze and protecting the ooze from a selesnya charm.
Varolz is just a dead card right now. Even against control, I would rather have another Chandra or Stormbreath Dragon.
Whip of Erebos is such a beating against the aggro and midrange decks. I was lucky to draw into Whip when I needed it in 3 matches, and I feel extremely safe dropping Varolz or Rakdos Charm for a 2nd Whip. The best part is that no one sees it coming, and without other artifact/enchantment targets, it's going to stick around until they see it in action.
Given the meta dependence, I could see myself dropping a Rakdos Return to the sideboard for a 4th doom blade, and dropping ratchet bomb for the return. Ratchet bomb is solid, but I feel like there are enough slots dedicated to dealing with Mono-U devotion already.
Went 4-1 tonight with this list, beating RDW twice and GW aggro twice, while losing to mono-U devotion due to epic land screw. I'll discuss MVPs and dead cards below.
Obviously, against 5 straight aggro decks Rakdos' Return felt like a dead draw, but it honestly is a gamechanger against midrange and control, and it actually won me a game 1 against GW aggro when I was able to take out 3 cards before dropping a scavenging ooze and protecting the ooze from a selesnya charm.
Varolz is just a dead card right now. Even against control, I would rather have another Chandra or Stormbreath Dragon.
Whip of Erebos is such a beating against the aggro and midrange decks. I was lucky to draw into Whip when I needed it in 3 matches, and I feel extremely safe dropping Varolz or Rakdos Charm for a 2nd Whip. The best part is that no one sees it coming, and without other artifact/enchantment targets, it's going to stick around until they see it in action.
Given the meta dependence, I could see myself dropping a Rakdos Return to the sideboard for a 4th doom blade, and dropping ratchet bomb for the return. Ratchet bomb is solid, but I feel like there are enough slots dedicated to dealing with Mono-U devotion already.
I like the list, i would like to know how the world eater has been in your matches. I dont think i have enough mana producers to make him worth it, thats why i dont run him.
I agree with whip, its just THAT good
its nice to see some desecration demon love !
changes to my deck are not showing very much promise, so i will be reverting back to 4 elvish mystics and no sylvan carytids. they are great mana fixers and defenders, but it just seemed to slow the deck down tremendously for me, and most of the time i wished they were something else.
Also have been considering desecration demon as a 4 of, will test it later this week. This card is just a bomb. Sure its easy to hate against with the sac effect, but to be honest its still SO good even with the sac effect, because the opponent has to keep cards down that they are willing to get rid of.
Hey guys, this is my new deck list, same sideboard. After testing last night that carytid did NOT look good for my deck.
So here is the version I will be testing, closer to what i started with.
I want to work in doom blade in the 75 somewhere but I Have no idea what to replace for it.
I can see replacing 1 magma jet for it, which i can do, but what other options do i have? replace a dreadbore with a doom blade?
Also, question, against a mirror match using more high end stuff of the midrange category, what do i sideboard in? He has 7 walkers (3 Xenagos, 2 chandra, 2 Vraska) 3 Kalonian Hydra, and a pretty good removal package along with other goodies. My aggro has beaten him before with the manglers and the early drop of desecration demon with no removal in his hand, but i want others opinion on their sideboarding tactics with the mirror matches.
I like the list, i would like to know how the world eater has been in your matches. I dont think i have enough mana producers to make him worth it, thats why i dont run him.
I agree with whip, its just THAT good
its nice to see some desecration demon love !
changes to my deck are not showing very much promise, so i will be reverting back to 4 elvish mystics and no sylvan carytids. they are great mana fixers and defenders, but it just seemed to slow the deck down tremendously for me, and most of the time i wished they were something else.
Also have been considering desecration demon as a 4 of, will test it later this week. This card is just a bomb. Sure its easy to hate against with the sac effect, but to be honest its still SO good even with the sac effect, because the opponent has to keep cards down that they are willing to get rid of.
Thing is, the demon sac trigger is actually quite difficult to work around for most decks. Only Mono-U and decks running a token walker like elspeth or xenagos can really lock it down for a significant period of time, and the rest of your jund shell can easily be tuned to force your opponent into making meaningful decisions based on the demon's presence on the board state.
The fact that he's an efficient answer for Advent of the Wurm, Stormbreath, AND Chandra's pheonix is why he's so good.
@Rutherjc - The mana intensity in your list makes me cringe. I already have issues with my own list, and it's been tuned so that it can reasonably hit double black by turn 4 and double red by turn 5. You have to max out on temple of abandon and your shocks, period. Otherwise you are simply increasing the odds of having unplayable cards in hand, which is certain death in this format.
Thing is, the demon sac trigger is actually quite difficult to work around for most decks. Only Mono-U and decks running a token walker like elspeth or xenagos can really lock it down for a significant period of time, and the rest of your jund shell can easily be tuned to force your opponent into making meaningful decisions based on the demon's presence on the board state.
The fact that he's an efficient answer for Advent of the Wurm, Stormbreath, AND Chandra's pheonix is why he's so good.
@Rutherjc - The mana intensity in your list makes me cringe. I already have issues with my own list, and it's been tuned so that it can reasonably hit double black by turn 4 and double red by turn 5. You have to max out on temple of abandon and your shocks, period. Otherwise you are simply increasing the odds of having unplayable cards in hand, which is certain death in this format.
Your right, to be honest i havent even looked at the mana base in awhile after doing all the testing and moving of cards, but yes when i get home i will add in the other 2 shocks, and my buddy has the 4th temple that i can easily get when i get home. There was a game last night actually to where i had 2 lifebane zombie's in my hand and i couldn't play them due to only 1 black source. I lost of course cuz i couldnt exile his hydra and his ooze.
Went 4-1 tonight with this list, beating RDW twice and GW aggro twice, while losing to mono-U devotion due to epic land screw. I'll discuss MVPs and dead cards below.
Obviously, against 5 straight aggro decks Rakdos' Return felt like a dead draw, but it honestly is a gamechanger against midrange and control, and it actually won me a game 1 against GW aggro when I was able to take out 3 cards before dropping a scavenging ooze and protecting the ooze from a selesnya charm.
Varolz is just a dead card right now. Even against control, I would rather have another Chandra or Stormbreath Dragon.
Whip of Erebos is such a beating against the aggro and midrange decks. I was lucky to draw into Whip when I needed it in 3 matches, and I feel extremely safe dropping Varolz or Rakdos Charm for a 2nd Whip. The best part is that no one sees it coming, and without other artifact/enchantment targets, it's going to stick around until they see it in action.
Given the meta dependence, I could see myself dropping a Rakdos Return to the sideboard for a 4th doom blade, and dropping ratchet bomb for the return. Ratchet bomb is solid, but I feel like there are enough slots dedicated to dealing with Mono-U devotion already.
The curve for this list seems high. Not that it's super high just where it is dense. Typically even with these many mana sources you need about 16 threat cards with cmc less than 4 (ie. not counting removal).. You have 13. Basically for consistencies sake the about 3 of those 4+ drops could afford to shave a bit of cmc. It's very important to play more 2 and 3's. That's why I play Varolz. I'd rather play more 4 and 5 drops too obviously but as I said certain constraints. Mind you, you play Ooze so that's a trade for Varolz. But no Mangler seems like a large void. I also play Satyr which gives me some room on my 3's if I need to although I generally think of it as a 5 drop curve wise.
The way your list plays out Varolz wouldn't be good for you. You don't have enough cheap creatures. Varolz is very good against non-proactive midrange decks both aggro and control as long as you play a certain density of cheap creatures. I don't like playing a ton of cheap creatures but given the mana dorks are cheap and even with them you can't really avoid a certain number. Varolz is also not great where Ooze is heavily played. I realize that that describes most green decks, but most green decks (outside of Jund or Junk) aren't really packing much removal which means Ooze plays pretty dead most of the time in the one place where Varolz isn't very good. I was scared to play him at first (as you can read in my first post) just because the type of lists I was making early format were full of Ooze. As Devotion decks catch on more and in so control I think Ooze will have a hard time since it's almost useless in both of those places.
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The curve for this list seems high. Not that it's super high just where it is dense. Typically even with these many mana sources you need about 16 threat cards with cmc less than 4 (ie. not counting removal).. You have 13. Basically for consistencies sake the about 3 of those 4+ drops could afford to shave a bit of cmc. It's very important to play more 2 and 3's. That's why I play Varolz. I'd rather play more 4 and 5 drops too obviously but as I said certain constraints. Mind you, you play Ooze so that's a trade for Varolz. But no Mangler seems like a large void. I also play Satyr which gives me some room on my 3's if I need to although I generally think of it as a 5 drop curve wise.
The way your list plays out Varolz wouldn't be good for you. You don't have enough cheap creatures. Varolz is very good against non-proactive midrange decks both aggro and control as long as you play a certain density of cheap creatures. I don't like playing a ton of cheap creatures but given the mana dorks are cheap and even with them you can't really avoid a certain number. Varolz is also not great where Ooze is heavily played. I realize that that describes most green decks, but most green decks (outside of Jund or Junk) aren't really packing much removal which means Ooze plays pretty dead most of the time in the one place where Varolz isn't very good. I was scared to play him at first (as you can read in my first post) just because the type of lists I was making early format were full of Ooze. As Devotion decks catch on more and in so control I think Ooze will have a hard time since it's almost useless in both of those places.
Not really understanding how you quantify something as a "threat" card. The goal of running a list with 8 mana dorks is to drop above-curve creatures at roughly the same pace as the aggro decks. As far as the manacost-curve of the maindeck goes, it's perfectly fine right now -
1 - 4
2 - 11
3 - 4
4 - 11
5 - 3
X - 3
Given the number of shocks, the 2 and 4 cmc slots are overloaded in order to make use of removal or bomby creatures without eating 4-6 damage just from shockland damage. Obviously, turn 2 Domri into turn 3 Demon/Reaper/Polu is a solid start, but sometimes it's just as good to play mystic on 1, removal spell on 2, fatty on 3, then see how the board plays out.
I also don't understand the comments about ooze. First off, he's amazing against RDW because he FORCES them to deal with it, otherwise your removal spells or chump blocks get added value. Secondly, he's a fantastic way to break stalemates against GW, mono-G, and Naya.
The Devotion decks are all extremely creature heavy, and Jund has access to some of the best removal options in standard right now. Ooze and removal go hand in hand, and forcing a critical mass of creatures just for Domri's +1 is detrimental to the deck. I'm running 24 creatures maindeck, and while it's not ideal, the deck is simply more powerful against the field by having certain non-creature spells in the maindeck.
I really don't like Sire of Insanity in a meta filled with Smiters, Fanatics, Master of Waves, and mizzum mortars. He simply can't take over an existing board, though if esper/UW control ever get super saturated, he could be a decent sideboard option.
Hey there so I did A LOT of playtesting against B/G midrange, Bant Prophet, and U/R Devotion.
As you see i Added Read the Bones + 1 Doom blade + 1 Land to the mainboard, as well as adjusted the mana base, and its been working A LOT better for me.
Bant Prophet 2-0
B/G midrange 2-0, then 2-1, then 1-2 (the 1-2 game i got land screwed and this was before I fixed the deck)
U/R Devotion 2-0, 2-0, 2-1, 1-2 (the 1-2 game, the last game he got a nut hand and I drew lands.. it happens lol Also out of respect for him since his deck had pooed on him the whole night, i didnt go to my sideboard on the last game i lost just to speed up the end of the night so everyone could go home and I could sleep lol)
I was missing key land drops and not hitting my black sources when i needed them, so after i adjusted the land the deck curves out wonderfully lol
Also grabbed 2 anger of the gods from the U/R player so I added them to the sideboard.
3 Scavenging Oozes feels A LOT better than 4. I was seeing him way more than i wanted to as a 4 of, and it was annoying to see him when i already was working on 1 that I had on the field.
when I see this list with sire of insanity, has anybody thought about blood scrivener in this yet?
Maybe as a 2 of or sth. Could see this doing real work.
maybe in the slot of the zhur-taa druids. Going to brew a list later at home, test and show some results.
my buddy tried it, he is a judge and a very good deck builder, and after playtesting within our group he didnt like it.
the combo his SOMETIMES but he hit scrivener a lot more than sire. Most of the time it was just a chump blocker to slow down the damage loss. Its cute but its not even close to being competitive in my own opinion
Not really understanding how you quantify something as a "threat" card. The goal of running a list with 8 mana dorks is to drop above-curve creatures at roughly the same pace as the aggro decks. As far as the manacost-curve of the maindeck goes, it's perfectly fine right now -
1 - 4
2 - 11
3 - 4
4 - 11
5 - 3
X - 3
Given the number of shocks, the 2 and 4 cmc slots are overloaded in order to make use of removal or bomby creatures without eating 4-6 damage just from shockland damage. Obviously, turn 2 Domri into turn 3 Demon/Reaper/Polu is a solid start, but sometimes it's just as good to play mystic on 1, removal spell on 2, fatty on 3, then see how the board plays out.
I also don't understand the comments about ooze. First off, he's amazing against RDW because he FORCES them to deal with it, otherwise your removal spells or chump blocks get added value. Secondly, he's a fantastic way to break stalemates against GW, mono-G, and Naya.
The Devotion decks are all extremely creature heavy, and Jund has access to some of the best removal options in standard right now. Ooze and removal go hand in hand, and forcing a critical mass of creatures just for Domri's +1 is detrimental to the deck. I'm running 24 creatures maindeck, and while it's not ideal, the deck is simply more powerful against the field by having certain non-creature spells in the maindeck.
When I said threat I mean stuff on the proactive curve. Ie doesn't depend on what the opponent is playing necessarily. Generally I'm talking about any permanent that promotes your game plan. I'm comparing to the slew of classic 8 mana dork decks. Mind you they usually didn't curve like this. Even the Lotus Cobra ones. Mind you the 2-4 nature of the cards we have is probably the general problem. I have always had issues with 2 mana ramp that can't on their own get you to 5 mana on T3 in these sort of decks. It's almost impossible to run enough removal with the amount of ramp to actually swing back around after playing an early removal spell. You want to be like dork, fatty, removal spell. If you go Dork, Removal, Fatty.. and they play another decent threat after your first removal spell they are still ahead. If they follow up with removal spell (all things being equal) then attack you are on the back foot. Whereas if you are the bigger deck and you keep laying big threat after threat eventually that removal spell in your hand becomes more like an overrun (assuming it is efficient enough to point and kill). But I admit the tempo with Caryatid is all wrong. It's even more awkward that if we have to doom blade T2, instead of playing ramp or a threat and then have this gap at 3. 2-4 makes you want to play a lot of 4's so you can jump back in the game after playing anemic 1-2's. But we can't always do so and atleast in a 1-3 deck the likelihood of T2 3 drop is reasonable when it pushes you to a high number of 3 drops, since they are still playable T3.. whereas T4 is generally too late to be getting in the game. It's the classic Farseek problem. Similarly why Farseek doesn't play well in aggro usually.
I think you are right about Domri from that perspective. But if that is the case then Domri isn't worth playing. At a certain threshold Domri really isn't worth playing. There are better 3 mana removal spells. It's the awkwardness of the 2-4 that is doing this and is the whole reason there is even a desire for that much removal.
It's this same awkwardness which makes G1 against Blue Devotion such a pain I find. I haven't really figured out how to beat that deck G1. Postboard with sweepers is trivial but I can't afford to play them main. This whole creature based Domri concept might just not work in a world of devotion. Once you cross a certain threshold into removal you might as well just be playing Jund Midrange.
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This whole creature based Domri concept might just not work in a world of devotion. Once you cross a certain threshold into removal you might as well just be playing Jund Midrange.
So are you saying that your thinking of taking out domri rade and just going jund midrange?
I think you are right about Domri from that perspective. But if that is the case then Domri isn't worth playing. At a certain threshold Domri really isn't worth playing. There are better 3 mana removal spells. It's the awkwardness of the 2-4 that is doing this and is the whole reason there is even a desire for that much removal.
It's this same awkwardness which makes G1 against Blue Devotion such a pain I find. I haven't really figured out how to beat that deck G1. Postboard with sweepers is trivial but I can't afford to play them main. This whole creature based Domri concept might just not work in a world of devotion. Once you cross a certain threshold into removal you might as well just be playing Jund Midrange.
Domri still serves a valid purpose for any deck still running 22+ creatures maindeck. He's card draw, he's removal, and he's a clock for control. He's a mainboard all-star, simply because there are very few board states that make him a dead card (even though he often comes out against pure aggro). More to the point, I don't see a single card in the sideboard that I would rather have maindeck over domri.
Removal is extremely important against mono-U devotion. If you can curve out on them, they don't stand a chance against a Descration Demon or Polukranos. Doom blade efficiently answers Master of Waves, and Thassa can be dealt with through any level of board control.
Domri still serves a valid purpose for any deck still running 22+ creatures maindeck. He's card draw, he's removal, and he's a clock for control. He's a mainboard all-star, simply because there are very few board states that make him a dead card (even though he often comes out against pure aggro). More to the point, I don't see a single card in the sideboard that I would rather have maindeck over domri.
Removal is extremely important against mono-U devotion. If you can curve out on them, they don't stand a chance against a Descration Demon or Polukranos. Doom blade efficiently answers Master of Waves, and Thassa can be dealt with through any level of board control.
Maybe.. 22.. maybe. If you are missing on his plus one at a fairly regular rate it would have been better just to draw a threat. Yes if control can't answer it you can ride it, but it has to be worth investing in otherwise. Like if they have Hero's Downfall and Detention Sphere is spades you can play in a way to keep it on the board or try to maximize value atleast maybe even buying back with Decay against sphere but if you are missing more than like 60% of the time the time you are giving control to get their game isn't profitting. Especially if you run out of threats to keep them busy. I think 27 is about the minimum I'd play with Domri in any configuration even postboard. It really isn't worth it much below. Often domri continually missing on +1 is worse than any bad 3 drop.
The struggle with mono blue is the wedge between Master of Waves and Nightveil Specter and the fact our lands do damage to us. That and the fact that they maindeck Tidebinder Mage which is a beating. Dropping a big 4 is insufficient especially Demon but a blocker for fliers is pretty important. So we plan to have a number of doom blades .. point removal.. lets say 5 main plus a few Domris. Is that really enough against fliers and Disperse/Rift if that 4 is like a Demon or a creature that goes down under Tidebinder. They can sac 1 drops and never get Thasa online and still beat us even if you have a doom blade for every master. There are just too many good targets and they are winning the tempo game. We can't get out the gates fast enough in a meaningful way since they can pretty much lock down anything we play short of Witchstalker or Mistcutter Hydra. It only takes maybe a bounce spell a turn under lock once or twice and it game.
The matchup pretty much folds with access to 2 for 1's like Anger of the Gods even with that protection from red clause on Master of Waves but running that sort of stuff main is such a liability with our source of ramp and it's deadness in certain matchups.
Neither approach of Mistcutter (with Whip for lifegain) nor Anger sound very nice main since it pretty much ignores the rest of the field... Anger might be reasonable but it would take some redesign. The other option is to board down more into an aggro deck and race but that precludes the ability to run sweepers at all in this fairly aggro / devotion metagame.. It would be fine but lets face it there isn't much to trade for the consistency and explosiveness of devotion in that sense. Realistically going a bit bigger and running more removal sounds preferable but at that point Domri isn't doing all that much and I have no clue what the end game is.
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I am not willing to quit on the domri approach. He hits more then he whiffs, and when he whiffs, its hardly every because i seen a removal card, its usually a land that I look at. Running a set of manglers and 2 exava's, a lot of times i reveal a haste creature, and thats just icing when i can bring something from the top of my library straight to the field, and proceed to swing.
Domri is jut SO good, that fight ability is perfect for what this deck is lacking. It can be removal, i can't count how many times i have fought a big creature with my desecration demon or my pumped up scavenging ooze.
is this deck easy? no, hell no its not easy. We are balancing on a very thin line between removal and effectiveness of domri's +1. but thats what this is supposed to be about
DOMRI JUND FOR STANDARD!
Undercosted beaters are the end-game. Stormbreath, Demon, Polu, and reaper all present some level of resilience to removal against the field.
The card pool is small enough that we just have to accept a couple of poor game 1 matchups. I certainly wish the manabase and the card pool allowed us to heavily stack an archetype into our favor, but I find is acceptable enough with my current iteration in that it has favorable game 1s against other midrange, GW aggro, RDW, and UW control. Unfavorable game 1s are against mono-U, esper control, and boros weenie/burn. Nothing is unwinnable, and that's better in my mind than trying to play mono-U and hoping you skate around every deck with supreme verdict.
Undercosted beaters are the end-game. Stormbreath, Demon, Polu, and reaper all present some level of resilience to removal against the field.
The card pool is small enough that we just have to accept a couple of poor game 1 matchups. I certainly wish the manabase and the card pool allowed us to heavily stack an archetype into our favor, but I find is acceptable enough with my current iteration in that it has favorable game 1s against other midrange, GW aggro, RDW, and UW control. Unfavorable game 1s are against mono-U, esper control, and boros weenie/burn. Nothing is unwinnable, and that's better in my mind than trying to play mono-U and hoping you skate around every deck with supreme verdict.
I agree 100%. We are gonna have bad match ups. We just gotta hope we can board correctly for g2 and or g3 and hit the answers when we need them.
The problem I have with that is those bad matchups are the ones that I consider more important. It's especially ironic where even with Domri the blue matchups aren't good enough game 1.
That being said I think it's solveable. My version has always had favorable Game 1 against Esper and UW Control because I run almost 0 dead cards against control and my Domri plus 1 is better than Scry 1 almost as good as Scry 2 given my creature density. Polukranos is very important against mono Blue Devotion and Mistcutter is good in both places. So I figure it's just a matter of rearranging things in a way that allows a few more free wins against midrange and upping the density of these good cards against blue decks.
I came 2nd at Game day yesterday. This most recent list I posted above is way way better than what I've been doing til now. This list is much closer to what I'm looking for. It has the power and the free wins without any terribly bad matchups game 1. I even battled a deck that punishes low removal and Demon/Whip/Polukranus/Mistcutter did a lot of work.
I beat a GB almost mirror first round. Basically I had Whip and Underworld Cerberus and he didn't. Those cards are huge mirror breakers for board stalls especially where everyone is playing demons.
2nd round I beat UW Heroic.. this deck used Hidden Strings with all the cheap heroic guys. I lost game 1 before I knew it simply from him giving his own guys vigilance from Hidden Strings retargetting each heroic guy each turn.. like seriously T5 he has like an army of 8/8's with one of them unblockable. I managed to leverage a bad draw for him game 2 and Demon/Whip to push advantage to win. Game 3 a thoughtseize took his hidden strings and he wasn't able to get ahead of my large creatures. He almost got back in but I was able to use Flesh to gain a bunch of life push him completely out of race situation.
3rd Round was mono black devotion. He beat me game 1 off extort and slow keep on my part. He played Erebos the turn before I was going to play Whip which basically nulled my game plan completely and I couldn't get out of range of his attacks as he slowly dwindled my life. Game 2 and 3 I had normal starts and put way too much pressure on him to keep up Flesh finishing off the last game.
4th Round was UW Control. Game 1 I saw both of my Mistcutters and had my opponent on the ropes..when I landed the 2nd after they swept the first. They managed to double sphinx, Jace to pull out a Verdict right before they died, seriously 3rd revealed card. 2nd game started well but I didn't get my red mana til about turn 8.. they landed turn 2 Blind Obediance and had 3 azorius charms. But a thoughtseize to a Sphinx's Rev. I finally drew red and they had 2 cards and I had 2 Rakdos' Return, 2 Underworld Cerberus, with Mistcutter and Boon Satyr in the graveyard.. I go for the Rakdos and empy their hand binning an island and an Essence Scatter.. next turn they don't do anything and I go for Cerberus.. sure enough it's an EoT Sphinx's Rev.. long story short after detention sphering both Cerberus and negating my Rakdos Return (I cast 2nd Rakdos return, then the 2nd Cerberus the following turn). I managed to land a Desecration demon, into a 3rd Detention sphere and then it was Aetherling time. I don't feel the matchup was bad, just not in it for me that day.
However I don't think Rakdos' Return is good in this deck given we don't have the value to pull away. It' snot like old Jund that only needed to land a couple Thrags or Garruks. I think Slaughter Games or Sire is a better choice, since we can't recover from a large Sphinx. If I were to play again I'd probably drop the whole Xenagos Rakdos plan and play this:
I also came in 2nd on gameday! My best friend was the one who came in 1st... and i was salty cuz now he has 2 Gameday matts and I have none still...
Im STILL getting land screwed on 24 land... and my god does it suck... lol
my record was:
2-0 U/W Heroic
2-0 Big Naya
2-1 U/G Prophet
2-1 U/W Control
0-2 Mono U... the first game was a battle... 2nd game i drew into 4 drops and 3 domri's with nothing small to play or removal to use... never even had a chance on game 2.
I did notice that on some games i had a very slow start and that can be quite troublesome for some matches... im thinking about taking out some removal for more creatures that i can play earlier. I also have a xenagos that i picked up and It was put in the place of 1 Exava, and out of the games that I seen Xenagos he helped so keeping him as a 1 of seems like a good idea to me.
As of right now im not sure what exactly I wanna change about the deck but its gotta put creatures out faster. Plain and simple.
Cards that i know im changing- Rakdos Return is going down to a 1 of. Its a great card but there were multiple games I seen both of them, and it wasnt necessary to see both of them.
Thats all i got right now. Im going to be playtesting some more this week so ill update as I change things.
Also i top 4ed at Fnm as well last Friday.
1-2 RUG Prophet, 3rd game i drew 7 land in a row, and there is nothing you can do when that happens... it just does lol
2-0 Bant Prophet control
I dont remember the middle opponent... but i 2-0'ed him as well, just dont remember who it was or what they were playing.
funny thing is i played the Rug player again after the tourney and i beat him 5-1 for the next games... so pre-board i am looking pretty good against his deck lol
Nocturnal God of Chaos of The Æsir Probably the most random person you will ever meet. Trust me on this one. Well, I'm off to poop.
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"For some of us, easier Magic is good Magic, but if you are one of those 'intelligent types,' feel free to play your Hive Mind mirrors. The rest of us are here for the fireworks." - Kent Ketter
Playing in Type 2...BGRJundHearted
I also came in 2nd on gameday! My best friend was the one who came in 1st... and i was salty cuz now he has 2 Gameday matts and I have none still...
Im STILL getting land screwed on 24 land... and my god does it suck... lol
my record was:
2-0 U/W Heroic
2-0 Big Naya
2-1 U/G Prophet
2-1 U/W Control
0-2 Mono U... the first game was a battle... 2nd game i drew into 4 drops and 3 domri's with nothing small to play or removal to use... never even had a chance on game 2.
I did notice that on some games i had a very slow start and that can be quite troublesome for some matches... im thinking about taking out some removal for more creatures that i can play earlier. I also have a xenagos that i picked up and It was put in the place of 1 Exava, and out of the games that I seen Xenagos he helped so keeping him as a 1 of seems like a good idea to me.
As of right now im not sure what exactly I wanna change about the deck but its gotta put creatures out faster. Plain and simple.
Cards that i know im changing- Rakdos Return is going down to a 1 of. Its a great card but there were multiple games I seen both of them, and it wasnt necessary to see both of them.
Thats all i got right now. Im going to be playtesting some more this week so ill update as I change things.
Yeah the early drops are essential. That is what I've been working on the most. Especially since Boon Satyr is often desired to be a 5 drop in certain matchups. I am continuing to experiment with this. That is why I tried the Kalonian Tusker but that probably isn't even right. As I said in a previous reply we probably still need a density of around 15-16 creatures/planeswalkers at 3 mana or less. I think given Ghor Clan the importance of having 2 drops is a lot higher and Boon Satyr has this awkwardness of not being a real 3. That's really awkward against decks like RDW, where Magma Jet and Shock kill most of the early creatures. On the otherside Tidebinder Mage out of Devotion is such a pain. I'm not really sure.. Witchstalker covers all bases but maybe even it is too clunky. Tusker's double green is really stretching my mana. I'm 2 green sources shorter than I'd like to be for it, but having 13 black sources is essential. I like how 2 mana plays work with Mystic.. basically no mystic T1 tapland.. yes mystic.. Play 2 drop with Mystic and T2 tapland. This makes Tusker playable in Mystic draws but maybe not outside of them.
Lotleth Troll doesn't really fit the bill for reasonable 2's. Spike Jester was very good except against decks with Frostburn Weird and Voice (less common these days). I'm not really sure.. Scavenging Ooze is so useless in some matchups that I'd almost want any 2/2.. Skylasher seems meh at holding the board.. I'm not sure.
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Current Decks: GWUKnightfall Modern UWTempo Legacy UGRBurning Wish Cobra Vintage
What about a more aggressive Domri Jund? With Exavas, Dreg Manglers and Thrill-Kill Assassins? TKA might be that 2 drop that you're looking for: synergizes quite well with 4 Domris as (comparatively) low-cost removal.
I'd put the Sylvan Caryatids on SB, so as to open up higher costing finishers from the SB against the relevant match-ups (Sire of Insanity/Ruric Thar/big Mistcutters). Things that would scare me: Blind Obediance. Less present in my meta, I think our best option is to grow bigger than they can handle; although right now I haven't so much played this deck as thought of TKA as a two drop and built around that within a Domri Jund shell.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, the reason I'm running Doomblades as removal is that with Domri-based removal, the only creatures I really fear are Boros Reckoner and MoW.
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
4 Blood Crypt
4 Temple of Abandon
3 Forest
4 Swamp
Creatures(27):
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Dreg Mangler
3 Varolz, the Scar Striped
3 Boon Satyr
3 Desecration Demon
3 Reaper of the Wilds
3 Underworld Cerberus
3 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
3 Domri Rade
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
1 Rakdos's Return
2 Abrupt Decay
1 Gaze of Granite
4 Anger of the Gods
3 Lifebane Zombie
2 Whip of Erebos
1 Rakdos's Return
2 _____________
I'm not sure if 2 or 3 or Reaper or Varolz is correct. They are sort of similar cards. Varolz is very good but not in multiples.. Reaper is alright. Polukranus might be the right move. Reapers Hexproof and Scry are very useful in some matchups but in a lot of ways the deck is looking for more mana sinks.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Scavenging Ooze
3 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Desecration Demon
4 Reaper of the Wilds
3 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Forest
2 Swamp
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Blood Crypt
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
2 Golgari Guildgate
3 Doom Blade
3 Rakdos's Return
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Dreadbore
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Whip of Erebos
1 Chandra, Pyromaster
1 Scavenging Ooze
2 Golgari Charm
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Gruul Charm
1 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Duress
1 Ratchet Bomb
Obviously, against 5 straight aggro decks Rakdos' Return felt like a dead draw, but it honestly is a gamechanger against midrange and control, and it actually won me a game 1 against GW aggro when I was able to take out 3 cards before dropping a scavenging ooze and protecting the ooze from a selesnya charm.
Varolz is just a dead card right now. Even against control, I would rather have another Chandra or Stormbreath Dragon.
Whip of Erebos is such a beating against the aggro and midrange decks. I was lucky to draw into Whip when I needed it in 3 matches, and I feel extremely safe dropping Varolz or Rakdos Charm for a 2nd Whip. The best part is that no one sees it coming, and without other artifact/enchantment targets, it's going to stick around until they see it in action.
Given the meta dependence, I could see myself dropping a Rakdos Return to the sideboard for a 4th doom blade, and dropping ratchet bomb for the return. Ratchet bomb is solid, but I feel like there are enough slots dedicated to dealing with Mono-U devotion already.
I like the list, i would like to know how the world eater has been in your matches. I dont think i have enough mana producers to make him worth it, thats why i dont run him.
I agree with whip, its just THAT good
its nice to see some desecration demon love !
changes to my deck are not showing very much promise, so i will be reverting back to 4 elvish mystics and no sylvan carytids. they are great mana fixers and defenders, but it just seemed to slow the deck down tremendously for me, and most of the time i wished they were something else.
Also have been considering desecration demon as a 4 of, will test it later this week. This card is just a bomb. Sure its easy to hate against with the sac effect, but to be honest its still SO good even with the sac effect, because the opponent has to keep cards down that they are willing to get rid of.
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Scavenging ooze
4 Dreg Mangler
2 Boon satyr
2 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
4 Desecration Demon
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
1 Vraska the Unseen
3 Magma Jet
3 Dreadbore
2 Rakdos Return
1 Whip of Erebos
3 Stomping Ground
3 Blood Crypt
3 Temple of Abandon
3 Swamp
2 Mountain
5 Forest
1 Pithing needle
1 Mizzium mortars
2 Skullcrack
1 Domri-Rade
3 Thoughtseize
3 Lifebane zombie
2 Slaughter games
Hey guys, this is my new deck list, same sideboard. After testing last night that carytid did NOT look good for my deck.
So here is the version I will be testing, closer to what i started with.
I want to work in doom blade in the 75 somewhere but I Have no idea what to replace for it.
I can see replacing 1 magma jet for it, which i can do, but what other options do i have? replace a dreadbore with a doom blade?
Also, question, against a mirror match using more high end stuff of the midrange category, what do i sideboard in? He has 7 walkers (3 Xenagos, 2 chandra, 2 Vraska) 3 Kalonian Hydra, and a pretty good removal package along with other goodies. My aggro has beaten him before with the manglers and the early drop of desecration demon with no removal in his hand, but i want others opinion on their sideboarding tactics with the mirror matches.
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
Thing is, the demon sac trigger is actually quite difficult to work around for most decks. Only Mono-U and decks running a token walker like elspeth or xenagos can really lock it down for a significant period of time, and the rest of your jund shell can easily be tuned to force your opponent into making meaningful decisions based on the demon's presence on the board state.
The fact that he's an efficient answer for Advent of the Wurm, Stormbreath, AND Chandra's pheonix is why he's so good.
@Rutherjc - The mana intensity in your list makes me cringe. I already have issues with my own list, and it's been tuned so that it can reasonably hit double black by turn 4 and double red by turn 5. You have to max out on temple of abandon and your shocks, period. Otherwise you are simply increasing the odds of having unplayable cards in hand, which is certain death in this format.
Your right, to be honest i havent even looked at the mana base in awhile after doing all the testing and moving of cards, but yes when i get home i will add in the other 2 shocks, and my buddy has the 4th temple that i can easily get when i get home. There was a game last night actually to where i had 2 lifebane zombie's in my hand and i couldn't play them due to only 1 black source. I lost of course cuz i couldnt exile his hydra and his ooze.
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
The curve for this list seems high. Not that it's super high just where it is dense. Typically even with these many mana sources you need about 16 threat cards with cmc less than 4 (ie. not counting removal).. You have 13. Basically for consistencies sake the about 3 of those 4+ drops could afford to shave a bit of cmc. It's very important to play more 2 and 3's. That's why I play Varolz. I'd rather play more 4 and 5 drops too obviously but as I said certain constraints. Mind you, you play Ooze so that's a trade for Varolz. But no Mangler seems like a large void. I also play Satyr which gives me some room on my 3's if I need to although I generally think of it as a 5 drop curve wise.
The way your list plays out Varolz wouldn't be good for you. You don't have enough cheap creatures. Varolz is very good against non-proactive midrange decks both aggro and control as long as you play a certain density of cheap creatures. I don't like playing a ton of cheap creatures but given the mana dorks are cheap and even with them you can't really avoid a certain number. Varolz is also not great where Ooze is heavily played. I realize that that describes most green decks, but most green decks (outside of Jund or Junk) aren't really packing much removal which means Ooze plays pretty dead most of the time in the one place where Varolz isn't very good. I was scared to play him at first (as you can read in my first post) just because the type of lists I was making early format were full of Ooze. As Devotion decks catch on more and in so control I think Ooze will have a hard time since it's almost useless in both of those places.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Not really understanding how you quantify something as a "threat" card. The goal of running a list with 8 mana dorks is to drop above-curve creatures at roughly the same pace as the aggro decks. As far as the manacost-curve of the maindeck goes, it's perfectly fine right now -
1 - 4
2 - 11
3 - 4
4 - 11
5 - 3
X - 3
Given the number of shocks, the 2 and 4 cmc slots are overloaded in order to make use of removal or bomby creatures without eating 4-6 damage just from shockland damage. Obviously, turn 2 Domri into turn 3 Demon/Reaper/Polu is a solid start, but sometimes it's just as good to play mystic on 1, removal spell on 2, fatty on 3, then see how the board plays out.
I also don't understand the comments about ooze. First off, he's amazing against RDW because he FORCES them to deal with it, otherwise your removal spells or chump blocks get added value. Secondly, he's a fantastic way to break stalemates against GW, mono-G, and Naya.
The Devotion decks are all extremely creature heavy, and Jund has access to some of the best removal options in standard right now. Ooze and removal go hand in hand, and forcing a critical mass of creatures just for Domri's +1 is detrimental to the deck. I'm running 24 creatures maindeck, and while it's not ideal, the deck is simply more powerful against the field by having certain non-creature spells in the maindeck.
3 Forest
3 Mountain
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
3 Swamp
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Scavenging Ooze
2 Sire of Insanity
4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Zhur-Taa Druid
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Dreadbore
2 Doom Blade
2 Mizzium Mortars
2 Putrefy
3 Read the Bones
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I really don't like Sire of Insanity in a meta filled with Smiters, Fanatics, Master of Waves, and mizzum mortars. He simply can't take over an existing board, though if esper/UW control ever get super saturated, he could be a decent sideboard option.
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Scavenging ooze
4 Dreg Mangler
2 Boon satyr
2 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
4 Desecration Demon
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
1 Vraska the Unseen
1 Doom Blade
2 Read the Bones
3 Dreadbore
2 Rakdos Return
1 Whip of Erebos
4 Stomping Ground
4 Blood Crypt
4 Temple of Abandon
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Golgari Gildgate
1 Rakdos Guildgate
1 Golgari Charm
1 Pithing needle
2 Skullcrack
3 Thoughtseize
2 Lifebane zombie
2 Slaughter games
2 Anger of the Gods
Hey there so I did A LOT of playtesting against B/G midrange, Bant Prophet, and U/R Devotion.
As you see i Added Read the Bones + 1 Doom blade + 1 Land to the mainboard, as well as adjusted the mana base, and its been working A LOT better for me.
Bant Prophet 2-0
B/G midrange 2-0, then 2-1, then 1-2 (the 1-2 game i got land screwed and this was before I fixed the deck)
U/R Devotion 2-0, 2-0, 2-1, 1-2 (the 1-2 game, the last game he got a nut hand and I drew lands.. it happens lol Also out of respect for him since his deck had pooed on him the whole night, i didnt go to my sideboard on the last game i lost just to speed up the end of the night so everyone could go home and I could sleep lol)
I was missing key land drops and not hitting my black sources when i needed them, so after i adjusted the land the deck curves out wonderfully lol
Also grabbed 2 anger of the gods from the U/R player so I added them to the sideboard.
3 Scavenging Oozes feels A LOT better than 4. I was seeing him way more than i wanted to as a 4 of, and it was annoying to see him when i already was working on 1 that I had on the field.
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
my buddy tried it, he is a judge and a very good deck builder, and after playtesting within our group he didnt like it.
the combo his SOMETIMES but he hit scrivener a lot more than sire. Most of the time it was just a chump blocker to slow down the damage loss. Its cute but its not even close to being competitive in my own opinion
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
When I said threat I mean stuff on the proactive curve. Ie doesn't depend on what the opponent is playing necessarily. Generally I'm talking about any permanent that promotes your game plan. I'm comparing to the slew of classic 8 mana dork decks. Mind you they usually didn't curve like this. Even the Lotus Cobra ones. Mind you the 2-4 nature of the cards we have is probably the general problem. I have always had issues with 2 mana ramp that can't on their own get you to 5 mana on T3 in these sort of decks. It's almost impossible to run enough removal with the amount of ramp to actually swing back around after playing an early removal spell. You want to be like dork, fatty, removal spell. If you go Dork, Removal, Fatty.. and they play another decent threat after your first removal spell they are still ahead. If they follow up with removal spell (all things being equal) then attack you are on the back foot. Whereas if you are the bigger deck and you keep laying big threat after threat eventually that removal spell in your hand becomes more like an overrun (assuming it is efficient enough to point and kill). But I admit the tempo with Caryatid is all wrong. It's even more awkward that if we have to doom blade T2, instead of playing ramp or a threat and then have this gap at 3. 2-4 makes you want to play a lot of 4's so you can jump back in the game after playing anemic 1-2's. But we can't always do so and atleast in a 1-3 deck the likelihood of T2 3 drop is reasonable when it pushes you to a high number of 3 drops, since they are still playable T3.. whereas T4 is generally too late to be getting in the game. It's the classic Farseek problem. Similarly why Farseek doesn't play well in aggro usually.
I think you are right about Domri from that perspective. But if that is the case then Domri isn't worth playing. At a certain threshold Domri really isn't worth playing. There are better 3 mana removal spells. It's the awkwardness of the 2-4 that is doing this and is the whole reason there is even a desire for that much removal.
It's this same awkwardness which makes G1 against Blue Devotion such a pain I find. I haven't really figured out how to beat that deck G1. Postboard with sweepers is trivial but I can't afford to play them main. This whole creature based Domri concept might just not work in a world of devotion. Once you cross a certain threshold into removal you might as well just be playing Jund Midrange.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
So are you saying that your thinking of taking out domri rade and just going jund midrange?
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
Domri still serves a valid purpose for any deck still running 22+ creatures maindeck. He's card draw, he's removal, and he's a clock for control. He's a mainboard all-star, simply because there are very few board states that make him a dead card (even though he often comes out against pure aggro). More to the point, I don't see a single card in the sideboard that I would rather have maindeck over domri.
Removal is extremely important against mono-U devotion. If you can curve out on them, they don't stand a chance against a Descration Demon or Polukranos. Doom blade efficiently answers Master of Waves, and Thassa can be dealt with through any level of board control.
Maybe.. 22.. maybe. If you are missing on his plus one at a fairly regular rate it would have been better just to draw a threat. Yes if control can't answer it you can ride it, but it has to be worth investing in otherwise. Like if they have Hero's Downfall and Detention Sphere is spades you can play in a way to keep it on the board or try to maximize value atleast maybe even buying back with Decay against sphere but if you are missing more than like 60% of the time the time you are giving control to get their game isn't profitting. Especially if you run out of threats to keep them busy. I think 27 is about the minimum I'd play with Domri in any configuration even postboard. It really isn't worth it much below. Often domri continually missing on +1 is worse than any bad 3 drop.
The struggle with mono blue is the wedge between Master of Waves and Nightveil Specter and the fact our lands do damage to us. That and the fact that they maindeck Tidebinder Mage which is a beating. Dropping a big 4 is insufficient especially Demon but a blocker for fliers is pretty important. So we plan to have a number of doom blades .. point removal.. lets say 5 main plus a few Domris. Is that really enough against fliers and Disperse/Rift if that 4 is like a Demon or a creature that goes down under Tidebinder. They can sac 1 drops and never get Thasa online and still beat us even if you have a doom blade for every master. There are just too many good targets and they are winning the tempo game. We can't get out the gates fast enough in a meaningful way since they can pretty much lock down anything we play short of Witchstalker or Mistcutter Hydra. It only takes maybe a bounce spell a turn under lock once or twice and it game.
The matchup pretty much folds with access to 2 for 1's like Anger of the Gods even with that protection from red clause on Master of Waves but running that sort of stuff main is such a liability with our source of ramp and it's deadness in certain matchups.
Neither approach of Mistcutter (with Whip for lifegain) nor Anger sound very nice main since it pretty much ignores the rest of the field... Anger might be reasonable but it would take some redesign. The other option is to board down more into an aggro deck and race but that precludes the ability to run sweepers at all in this fairly aggro / devotion metagame.. It would be fine but lets face it there isn't much to trade for the consistency and explosiveness of devotion in that sense. Realistically going a bit bigger and running more removal sounds preferable but at that point Domri isn't doing all that much and I have no clue what the end game is.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Domri is jut SO good, that fight ability is perfect for what this deck is lacking. It can be removal, i can't count how many times i have fought a big creature with my desecration demon or my pumped up scavenging ooze.
is this deck easy? no, hell no its not easy. We are balancing on a very thin line between removal and effectiveness of domri's +1. but thats what this is supposed to be about
DOMRI JUND FOR STANDARD!
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
The card pool is small enough that we just have to accept a couple of poor game 1 matchups. I certainly wish the manabase and the card pool allowed us to heavily stack an archetype into our favor, but I find is acceptable enough with my current iteration in that it has favorable game 1s against other midrange, GW aggro, RDW, and UW control. Unfavorable game 1s are against mono-U, esper control, and boros weenie/burn. Nothing is unwinnable, and that's better in my mind than trying to play mono-U and hoping you skate around every deck with supreme verdict.
I agree 100%. We are gonna have bad match ups. We just gotta hope we can board correctly for g2 and or g3 and hit the answers when we need them.
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
That being said I think it's solveable. My version has always had favorable Game 1 against Esper and UW Control because I run almost 0 dead cards against control and my Domri plus 1 is better than Scry 1 almost as good as Scry 2 given my creature density. Polukranos is very important against mono Blue Devotion and Mistcutter is good in both places. So I figure it's just a matter of rearranging things in a way that allows a few more free wins against midrange and upping the density of these good cards against blue decks.
I'm trying this:
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
4 Blood Crypt
4 Temple of Abandon
3 Forest
5 Swamp
Creatures(30):
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Kalonian Tusker
4 Dreg Mangler
2 Boon Satyr
4 Ghor Clan Rampager
3 Desecration Demon
3 Polukranos, World Eater
3 Underworld Cerberus
2 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Flesh//Blood
3 Domri Rade
1 Whip of Erebos
3 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Putrefy
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Act of Treason
1 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Rakdos's Return
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
I beat a GB almost mirror first round. Basically I had Whip and Underworld Cerberus and he didn't. Those cards are huge mirror breakers for board stalls especially where everyone is playing demons.
2nd round I beat UW Heroic.. this deck used Hidden Strings with all the cheap heroic guys. I lost game 1 before I knew it simply from him giving his own guys vigilance from Hidden Strings retargetting each heroic guy each turn.. like seriously T5 he has like an army of 8/8's with one of them unblockable. I managed to leverage a bad draw for him game 2 and Demon/Whip to push advantage to win. Game 3 a thoughtseize took his hidden strings and he wasn't able to get ahead of my large creatures. He almost got back in but I was able to use Flesh to gain a bunch of life push him completely out of race situation.
3rd Round was mono black devotion. He beat me game 1 off extort and slow keep on my part. He played Erebos the turn before I was going to play Whip which basically nulled my game plan completely and I couldn't get out of range of his attacks as he slowly dwindled my life. Game 2 and 3 I had normal starts and put way too much pressure on him to keep up Flesh finishing off the last game.
4th Round was UW Control. Game 1 I saw both of my Mistcutters and had my opponent on the ropes..when I landed the 2nd after they swept the first. They managed to double sphinx, Jace to pull out a Verdict right before they died, seriously 3rd revealed card. 2nd game started well but I didn't get my red mana til about turn 8.. they landed turn 2 Blind Obediance and had 3 azorius charms. But a thoughtseize to a Sphinx's Rev. I finally drew red and they had 2 cards and I had 2 Rakdos' Return, 2 Underworld Cerberus, with Mistcutter and Boon Satyr in the graveyard.. I go for the Rakdos and empy their hand binning an island and an Essence Scatter.. next turn they don't do anything and I go for Cerberus.. sure enough it's an EoT Sphinx's Rev.. long story short after detention sphering both Cerberus and negating my Rakdos Return (I cast 2nd Rakdos return, then the 2nd Cerberus the following turn). I managed to land a Desecration demon, into a 3rd Detention sphere and then it was Aetherling time. I don't feel the matchup was bad, just not in it for me that day.
However I don't think Rakdos' Return is good in this deck given we don't have the value to pull away. It' snot like old Jund that only needed to land a couple Thrags or Garruks. I think Slaughter Games or Sire is a better choice, since we can't recover from a large Sphinx. If I were to play again I'd probably drop the whole Xenagos Rakdos plan and play this:
4 Overgrown Tomb
4 Stomping Ground
4 Blood Crypt
4 Temple of Abandon
3 Forest
5 Swamp
Creatures(30):
4 Elvish Mystic
3 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Kalonian Tusker
4 Dreg Mangler
2 Boon Satyr
4 Ghor Clan Rampager
3 Desecration Demon
3 Polukranos, World Eater
3 Underworld Cerberus
2 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Flesh//Blood
3 Domri Rade
1 Whip of Erebos
3 Thoughtseize
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Golgari Charm
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Act of Treason
1 Domri Rade
2 Mistcutter Hydra
2 Slaughter Games
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
Im STILL getting land screwed on 24 land... and my god does it suck... lol
my record was:
2-0 U/W Heroic
2-0 Big Naya
2-1 U/G Prophet
2-1 U/W Control
0-2 Mono U... the first game was a battle... 2nd game i drew into 4 drops and 3 domri's with nothing small to play or removal to use... never even had a chance on game 2.
Ghor-clan Rampager wins games with the bloodrush
Dreg Mangler is a hasty beast who I love
Slaughter Games is a great card when you see it against control.
I did notice that on some games i had a very slow start and that can be quite troublesome for some matches... im thinking about taking out some removal for more creatures that i can play earlier. I also have a xenagos that i picked up and It was put in the place of 1 Exava, and out of the games that I seen Xenagos he helped so keeping him as a 1 of seems like a good idea to me.
As of right now im not sure what exactly I wanna change about the deck but its gotta put creatures out faster. Plain and simple.
Cards that i know im changing-
Rakdos Return is going down to a 1 of. Its a great card but there were multiple games I seen both of them, and it wasnt necessary to see both of them.
Thats all i got right now. Im going to be playtesting some more this week so ill update as I change things.
Also i top 4ed at Fnm as well last Friday.
1-2 RUG Prophet, 3rd game i drew 7 land in a row, and there is nothing you can do when that happens... it just does lol
2-0 Bant Prophet control
I dont remember the middle opponent... but i 2-0'ed him as well, just dont remember who it was or what they were playing.
funny thing is i played the Rug player again after the tourney and i beat him 5-1 for the next games... so pre-board i am looking pretty good against his deck lol
Thanks you very much DarkNightCavalier for the Sig.
4 Blood Crypt
4 Stomping Ground
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
3 Swamp
3 Forest
3 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Scavenging Ooze
3 Lifebane Zombie
2 Boon Satyr
2 Varolz, the Scar-Striped
2 Polukranos, World Eater
3 Desecration Demon
1 Erebos, God of the Dead
1 Nylea, God of the Hunt
3 Reaper of the Wilds
3 Stormbreath Dragon
3 Domri Rade
3 Hero's Downfall
1 Rakdos's Return
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"I don't usually herp, but when I do, I herp a derp." - Madison Smith
Oh, my username is the same on Xbox and Cockatrice, add me!
"For some of us, easier Magic is good Magic, but if you are one of those 'intelligent types,' feel free to play your Hive Mind mirrors. The rest of us are here for the fireworks." - Kent Ketter
Playing in Type 2...BGRJundHearted
Yeah the early drops are essential. That is what I've been working on the most. Especially since Boon Satyr is often desired to be a 5 drop in certain matchups. I am continuing to experiment with this. That is why I tried the Kalonian Tusker but that probably isn't even right. As I said in a previous reply we probably still need a density of around 15-16 creatures/planeswalkers at 3 mana or less. I think given Ghor Clan the importance of having 2 drops is a lot higher and Boon Satyr has this awkwardness of not being a real 3. That's really awkward against decks like RDW, where Magma Jet and Shock kill most of the early creatures. On the otherside Tidebinder Mage out of Devotion is such a pain. I'm not really sure.. Witchstalker covers all bases but maybe even it is too clunky. Tusker's double green is really stretching my mana. I'm 2 green sources shorter than I'd like to be for it, but having 13 black sources is essential. I like how 2 mana plays work with Mystic.. basically no mystic T1 tapland.. yes mystic.. Play 2 drop with Mystic and T2 tapland. This makes Tusker playable in Mystic draws but maybe not outside of them.
Lotleth Troll doesn't really fit the bill for reasonable 2's. Spike Jester was very good except against decks with Frostburn Weird and Voice (less common these days). I'm not really sure.. Scavenging Ooze is so useless in some matchups that I'd almost want any 2/2.. Skylasher seems meh at holding the board.. I'm not sure.
GWU Knightfall Modern
UW Tempo Legacy
UGR Burning Wish Cobra Vintage
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Thrill-Kill Assassin
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Dreg Mangler
3 Exava, Rakdos Blood Witch
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Reaper of the Wilds
4 Khalonian Hydra
3 Doom blade
Planeswalkers (4)
4 Domri Rade
Lands (24)
4 Temple of Abandon
4 Overgrown Tombs
4 Blood Crypt
4 Stomping Ground
4 Forest
4 Swamp
I'd put the Sylvan Caryatids on SB, so as to open up higher costing finishers from the SB against the relevant match-ups (Sire of Insanity/Ruric Thar/big Mistcutters). Things that would scare me: Blind Obediance. Less present in my meta, I think our best option is to grow bigger than they can handle; although right now I haven't so much played this deck as thought of TKA as a two drop and built around that within a Domri Jund shell.
EDIT: Forgot to mention, the reason I'm running Doomblades as removal is that with Domri-based removal, the only creatures I really fear are Boros Reckoner and MoW.
:symg::symr::symb: Domri Jund