Cancel is stupidly bad, as is Convolute. If you want a 3 mana counterspell, play Dissipate, Voidslime, or Dissipate. And Imp's Mischief isn't a counterspell. Also, play Condescend. I play it in Blue Moon and it is an amazing card that needs to see more play in Modern.
I just named some counters from a Gatherer search, but I have been looking at Condescend for a while now. Still trying to figure out the best number for it though. I am liking 3 at the moment.
Imp's Mischief can redirect a counter to itself and then it resolves, the counter then fizzles because there is no legal target. So it is technically a counterspell in a way that also has a way to stop Abrupt Decay form hitting Heartbeat of Spring.
I have this feeling this deck desperately needs Teferi to have a steady Silence effect to protect itself during the combo turn, otherwise it would fold from too many things.
Yeah. He seems like a good card, but the first thing that comes to my mind is that you are casting Teferi at 5, then a Dictate at 5 again. Right now casting the Dictate with countermagic in hand has been working for me. I just feel like casting the Teferi and waiting a turn is asking for him to eat all of the removal. I do like the idea of it though and will consider it. My other question is that if he gives things Flash, could Mystical Teachings then tutor for them?
Think about Nature's Claim on Dictate; Remand on the untapper when you are bottlenecked on mana; Cryptic countering the untapper and bouncing Dictate; worst of all, Counterflux trolling all your protection spells. Too many things can go wrong within the sequence of this deck (especially considering that you are helping your opponent in casting his spells too), and what makes things worse is that you already have to undergo several loops when you are risking to fizzle by yourself.
Counterflux is stopped by Determined, or Autumn's Veil, or Silence. This only comes up in the UWR matchup, but Determined is treated like a counterspell on its own and if it is not dealt with we basically win the game.
Basically when comboing you don't have to dip too low in your mana pool ever. It is very rare that "Remand on the untapper when you are bottlenecked on mana" ever comes up because it is you choosing how much mana you spend all the time. You can always leave some up and keep up counters.
"you already have to undergo several loops when you are risking to fizzle by yourself" yes the combo of the deck could be said to be "Comboing through loops, or playing a game of solitare" but that is half of the point/combo. I said a few pages back that with my old list I think I fizzled out about 2/50 times, and with my more recent ones it has been even less. Basically I have found a good balance with the deck right now that I am not fizzling even a noticeable amount of the time.
I would like to know from you. Not that I particularly like the lists you came to (I still think Time Reversal and Urban Evolution are garbage cards in Modern), but maybe Teferi can be a good idea.
Go back and read my posts. I dropped Urban Evolution near the start of the Primer, and I have said multiple times that I have never actually casted Time Reversal and that I cut them a while ago. I think I had one in my list at the last event, but never casted it and was always unhappy to see it. I am trying to play a more tempo based combo deck. It is starting to look like a mix between Mono U Tron and RUG Scapeshift with the GSZ combo thrown in. It has been working for me, but I will look into Teferi to see how he plays out and if he can help the deck.
And if there are any good hard counters that could be run I think they might be decent. There are a few games where Remand just isn't enough or it gets dragged out. Deprive would be beautiful if we had a way to replay lands.
Go read through the Primer. I have listed a bunch.
Anyways, Deprive could be fine if we run 25 lands and have 3+ Explores maindeck, which isn't going to happen. Life from the Loam wouldn't be a bad card to have, but I feel like the matchup and times it is relavent it is going to come up are so little. Like what are they going to do? Ghost Quarter our Forest so we can go get a Forest? It will actually ramp us mana which is hilarious. And Tectonic Edge can't hit basics so we are safe from 99% of the decks in the format.
I also think Early Frost is worth a shot. Maybe in conjunction with some Plow Under strategy? And I am looking into playing 3-4 Condescends right now. I am loving the scry you get from it. The only problem is boarding them out when you are on the draw.
I have added a lot more content to the Primer! Notable additions:
1) Gaea's Blessing in the sorcery section of the maindeck. Thanks to LtGlitter for bringing this amazing card to my attention.
2) Izzet Charm and Epic Experiment have been added to the Red splash section with some of my thoughts on them I skipped over them the first time.
3) I have added in the White splash section!! Lots of cards talked about in this one. If there is anything anyone thinks should be added to it let me know and I will put it in.
4) I also went through the entire primer and spell checked everything. Aside from that I fixed about 50 apostrophes that were formatted with MS Word and caused the card tags to not show the images correctly. The main culprit was about half of the Blue Sun's Zenith links, as well as all of my "It's", "Don't", and "Wasn't" formatting typos...
My next focus will be on the sideboard section of the Primer and maybe adding in other in-colour cards to the "Additional Cards & Color Splash" section, as well as posting my lest I have been working on.
That is all. I may be going to FNM tomorrow. If I do I'll put up another, probably small, report after. I changed my deck around just a bit. Regardless I'll probably post the list sometime.
How can you go to FNM on a Wednesday?
Other than that I like the changes to the primer! Edit: Cards in the banner are Tribe Elder, Dictate, GSZ, Time Reversal, Merchant Scroll, BSZ, & Early Harvest.
You caught me. I should call it Wednesday Night Unscantioned Modern Magic With 100% Proxies Allowed For GPT And Other Various Testing Purposes.
or WNUMMWOPPAFGAOVTP for short.
Aside form that, I didn't actually play in it tonight, but I took my new list for some games that turned out really really well. I'll put up the list tomorrow.
Early Harvest already is. Its on the right hand side. He is using the old art from Tempest.
Oh ok.
Yeah. BSZ and Early Harvest are both already in the banner picture? And GSZ is there for jokes... I wasn't asking about the banner though. I was talking about entire card pictures down in the card choice sections.
So I updated the primer in the colour splash section. I only have red in there right now, but I intend to add White soon enough. If there are any cards I missed please let me know and I can add them in. Also I want some opinion on stuff.
1) Would having the mana symbols next to the names on the card choices in the primer help people or would it make it too cluttered? Not many primers do it, but then again I think mine is a bit more fancy then most of the ones on the site, with all the boxes and headers etc....
2) Should those huge text boxes be inside spoilers for each section? Because people probably don't go to the first page any more except to read the primer, do I need to minimize them for better scrolling or is it fine? I personally think it's fine because boxes look dumb inside of spoiler tags, but whatever the community wants should go I guess.
3) Any card suggestions for the main page/ color splash sections??? Please list any you think should be included.
4) Is there a need for a table of contents on the OP if it gets too big (aka there aren't that many spoiler tags and I keep it looking crisp and nice).
5) Would adding more card images make the Primer look nicer??
That is all. I may be going to FNM tomorrow. If I do I'll put up another, probably small, report after. I changed my deck around just a bit. Regardless I'll probably post the list sometime.
Gonna have to hold off on the Groves for a bit unfortunately. Gonna have to be Stomping Grounds in the meantime.
If you already have the shocks it's OK, but if you're buying them now I'd suggest Karplusan Forest instead. It's cheaper, and usually a better replacement for Groves.
This may be a more out there suggestion if you want to be playing RG Tron. But another option until you can actually get the Groves is play that mono green list from a while ago that ran Mishra's Bauble in the place of Pyroclasm. It tried to get a turn 3 Tron every game (and was pretty darn consistent), and it made up for the lack of Pyroclasms with a full set of Oblivion Stones and some All Is Dusts. Just a suggestion, although I would also advocate the Karplusan Forest route too if you are goign for GR.
You talked about Smallpox and upping to a playset. I have played Assault Loam enough that I would advise against it and instead say play the fourth one in the sideboard if you haven't been doing so. I used to play all four and actually found it rather oppressive and hurting my own tempo too much. Vs some decks it was an all star, but the others I was happy to just discard a copy or two and not be drawing it that often. I'd say play with a fourth for a while and see if this deck is any better suited for it. But in my experience it just isn't worth it. Also on a side note Infect auto-looses to Smallpox.
Another question is that have you been finding it is too much impact on your life if Haakon is getting Bolted? I was finding that you can almost be burned out while they are weakening your board state. What measures have you taken to prevent this, if any?
I really think this deck can benefit from Ideas Unbound. Since High Tide runs Meditate and it refuels their hand mid combo I figured maybe this would fit. However its competing against a lot of really important spells in our deck so im not sure it would work.
I tried Ideas Unbound for a while. It was nice, but at the same time it was never really necessary. I found that when I drew it, it was on a turn before I was going to combo and then I could filter my hand a bit, but it never got exactly what I wanted the same way one of the tutors could. Then once I was comboing off I never had a shortage of card draw. Through Blue Sun's Zenith, spare Serum Visions, and Telling Times you can get whatever card you want from the top of your library and the two or three mana more that you have to use to cast a second one is so insignificant once you have a plethora in your pool.
After having tested it in my list for about a week I decided to cut it. I feel that I would rather max out the spells that provide utility at all points in the game and don't have as big of a draw back, or if any. Maybe if I was playing Sleight of Hand then it would be easier to ship it to the bottom, but for now Serum Visions seems to be working fine.
Also the only graveyard hate I saw for the entire event was Scavenging Ooze. I don't know if I just got lucky, or if people are really trimming down on the real hate, but it has been working well for me either way.
This is a really out of date statement, but back when DRS was legal people thought it was the end-all be-all of GY hate. So they didn't pack much else. Once he left the format people panicked and packed so much that it flushed graveyard centric decks basically out of the format. Once people realized that there wasn't a point left for graveyard hate they took it out of their sideboards and here we are in a fairly Gy hate lite meta.
I like the current name, though I would prefer it as Green Sun's Zenith. This is mainly because when I first saw it I thought that it was a deck by some noob who didn't realize that GSZ is banned in Modern and I was pleasantly surprised when I learned that that was intentional.
I thought the exact same thing, I came on here originally to troll the thread owner but realized the deck was actually fun and was a play on words.
But for that same reason I feel the name will distract some people when they see this. I feel something like the names I presented or something with "Combo" in the name so people understand.
Ahahaha this is exactly what I was going for.
Aside from that, the name can be reworked, Green's Sun Zenith could be good too. I think modern needs some more creative names, but the deck needs to be well known before we can use a super creative name. It also needs to attract a lot of attention right now.
I updated the "How to Play" section of the Primer. Can someone give it a read through and tell me if it makes sense. I wrote it in the car while half asleep so some parts might be pretty out there. If there is a demand I can also give a more step by step guide on how to combo out. Or even make a video of me playing through the combo. It would probably help the people seeing the deck for the first time.
The only thing that pops out at me is the two Thoughtseizes. Life is really important in this deck I find and Inquisition of Kozilek hits 80% of the same cards.
I also think Pack Rat was discussed a bunch of pages back if you want to go find it.
Ill post my exact list later after I get home from the prerelease. But I think it was really similar to my most recent list.
Also I heavily advocate the name "Modern High Tide".
Ok sounds good. I'll also probably update the OP with more content then too.
As for your name suggestion, that is one that I would be ok with. It encompasses the feel and idea of the deck which I like. Is there a way to make it a play on words, or something really catchy?
Imp's Mischief can redirect a counter to itself and then it resolves, the counter then fizzles because there is no legal target. So it is technically a counterspell in a way that also has a way to stop Abrupt Decay form hitting Heartbeat of Spring.
Yeah. He seems like a good card, but the first thing that comes to my mind is that you are casting Teferi at 5, then a Dictate at 5 again. Right now casting the Dictate with countermagic in hand has been working for me. I just feel like casting the Teferi and waiting a turn is asking for him to eat all of the removal. I do like the idea of it though and will consider it. My other question is that if he gives things Flash, could Mystical Teachings then tutor for them?
Right now my thought process is:
Nature's Claim or any instant trying to disrupt the combo (aka Cryptic Command) is met with Swan Song.
Counterflux is stopped by Determined, or Autumn's Veil, or Silence. This only comes up in the UWR matchup, but Determined is treated like a counterspell on its own and if it is not dealt with we basically win the game.
Basically when comboing you don't have to dip too low in your mana pool ever. It is very rare that "Remand on the untapper when you are bottlenecked on mana" ever comes up because it is you choosing how much mana you spend all the time. You can always leave some up and keep up counters.
"you already have to undergo several loops when you are risking to fizzle by yourself" yes the combo of the deck could be said to be "Comboing through loops, or playing a game of solitare" but that is half of the point/combo. I said a few pages back that with my old list I think I fizzled out about 2/50 times, and with my more recent ones it has been even less. Basically I have found a good balance with the deck right now that I am not fizzling even a noticeable amount of the time.
Go back and read my posts. I dropped Urban Evolution near the start of the Primer, and I have said multiple times that I have never actually casted Time Reversal and that I cut them a while ago. I think I had one in my list at the last event, but never casted it and was always unhappy to see it. I am trying to play a more tempo based combo deck. It is starting to look like a mix between Mono U Tron and RUG Scapeshift with the GSZ combo thrown in. It has been working for me, but I will look into Teferi to see how he plays out and if he can help the deck.
Delay
Rewind
Cryptic Command
Swan Song
Dispel
Mana Leak (Not a hard counter but still)
etc...
Some other options that I never mentioned are:
Avoid Fate
Bant Charm
Cancel
Condescend
Convolute
and my favourite unknown counter... Imp's Mischief!!!
Anyways, Deprive could be fine if we run 25 lands and have 3+ Explores maindeck, which isn't going to happen. Life from the Loam wouldn't be a bad card to have, but I feel like the matchup and times it is relavent it is going to come up are so little. Like what are they going to do? Ghost Quarter our Forest so we can go get a Forest? It will actually ramp us mana which is hilarious. And Tectonic Edge can't hit basics so we are safe from 99% of the decks in the format.
I also think Early Frost is worth a shot. Maybe in conjunction with some Plow Under strategy? And I am looking into playing 3-4 Condescends right now. I am loving the scry you get from it. The only problem is boarding them out when you are on the draw.
1) Gaea's Blessing in the sorcery section of the maindeck. Thanks to LtGlitter for bringing this amazing card to my attention.
2) Izzet Charm and Epic Experiment have been added to the Red splash section with some of my thoughts on them I skipped over them the first time.
3) I have added in the White splash section!! Lots of cards talked about in this one. If there is anything anyone thinks should be added to it let me know and I will put it in.
4) I also went through the entire primer and spell checked everything. Aside from that I fixed about 50 apostrophes that were formatted with MS Word and caused the card tags to not show the images correctly. The main culprit was about half of the Blue Sun's Zenith links, as well as all of my "It's", "Don't", and "Wasn't" formatting typos...
My next focus will be on the sideboard section of the Primer and maybe adding in other in-colour cards to the "Additional Cards & Color Splash" section, as well as posting my lest I have been working on.
or WNUMMWOPPAFGAOVTP for short.
Aside form that, I didn't actually play in it tonight, but I took my new list for some games that turned out really really well. I'll put up the list tomorrow.
1) Would having the mana symbols next to the names on the card choices in the primer help people or would it make it too cluttered? Not many primers do it, but then again I think mine is a bit more fancy then most of the ones on the site, with all the boxes and headers etc....
2) Should those huge text boxes be inside spoilers for each section? Because people probably don't go to the first page any more except to read the primer, do I need to minimize them for better scrolling or is it fine? I personally think it's fine because boxes look dumb inside of spoiler tags, but whatever the community wants should go I guess.
3) Any card suggestions for the main page/ color splash sections??? Please list any you think should be included.
4) Is there a need for a table of contents on the OP if it gets too big (aka there aren't that many spoiler tags and I keep it looking crisp and nice).
5) Would adding more card images make the Primer look nicer??
That is all. I may be going to FNM tomorrow. If I do I'll put up another, probably small, report after. I changed my deck around just a bit. Regardless I'll probably post the list sometime.
You talked about Smallpox and upping to a playset. I have played Assault Loam enough that I would advise against it and instead say play the fourth one in the sideboard if you haven't been doing so. I used to play all four and actually found it rather oppressive and hurting my own tempo too much. Vs some decks it was an all star, but the others I was happy to just discard a copy or two and not be drawing it that often. I'd say play with a fourth for a while and see if this deck is any better suited for it. But in my experience it just isn't worth it. Also on a side note Infect auto-looses to Smallpox.
Another question is that have you been finding it is too much impact on your life if Haakon is getting Bolted? I was finding that you can almost be burned out while they are weakening your board state. What measures have you taken to prevent this, if any?
After having tested it in my list for about a week I decided to cut it. I feel that I would rather max out the spells that provide utility at all points in the game and don't have as big of a draw back, or if any. Maybe if I was playing Sleight of Hand then it would be easier to ship it to the bottom, but for now Serum Visions seems to be working fine.
Aside from that, the name can be reworked, Green's Sun Zenith could be good too. I think modern needs some more creative names, but the deck needs to be well known before we can use a super creative name. It also needs to attract a lot of attention right now.
It has been done!
I also think Pack Rat was discussed a bunch of pages back if you want to go find it.
As for your name suggestion, that is one that I would be ok with. It encompasses the feel and idea of the deck which I like. Is there a way to make it a play on words, or something really catchy?
The first is Mono Green Stompy.
The second is Mono Green Devotion.
They are both mono green decks and can probably give you some good ideas to help build your deck.