The issue with this is morbid is really terrible, and tons of two toughness creatures are starting to show up. Delver being one of them.(at least after flips)
Conditional cards that don't have a major upside just are not good. Dismember is still the best 1 mana removal spell outside of path, and that's not likely to change as removal gets worse and worse to push creatures.
Morbid is not that bad if the upside effect is good enough. Sure, if you are playing a creatureless deck it is harder to make it happen, but even then you can easily double-up removal when it's this cheap. Tragic Slip is probably a better card than Disfigure (which does see some play in Modern), and it's probably a little bit worse than Dismember, but I guess we'll have to see when we can actually play with it.
I wonder if Curse of Exhaustion will see any play - maybe only if storm becomes particularly good.
I also wonder if Undying Evil could be good in decks that run Snapcaster, and whether Saving Grasp would work in Merfolk. Being able to defeat all sorts of removal twice seems like a good deal.
And lastly, I wonder if there's a fateful hour deck that could be made, that uses Death's Shadow and tries to keep its life total at 5 or less.
The one thing I don't really see in this set is any card that calls out to be broken. While there's plenty of cards that could see play in Modern, none of them (with the possible exception of Sorin 2.0) seem to be powerhouse build-around-me cards like Delver or Past in Flames, or amazing utility cards like Liliana or Snapcaster.
I'm starting to wonder (after fooling with a streamlined version a bit last night) if the Esper version of this deck wouldn't just be better without the constraints that Deny Reality is putting on it. Yes, it's nice to bounce two things with one card when it happens, but wouldn't it also be nice to Snapcast some cheap bounce spells? And if we're playing so many spells, wouldn't Delver be fun?
Though really, I'd like to see them print lands like Coffers (which is just for mono-black) or Temple (which is slow) that could help a deck get to 4 mana on turn 3. What was the one from the Wake decks? One of the things that seems strange about Modern is that it is so oppressive on the mana costs of spells because all the mana acceleration is so slow or clunky. Adding some decent acceleration would diversify the format. But maybe the right card doesn't exist yet.
any deck that runs permanent removal like zoo, jund, junk or decks that run counterspells like control. Waiting several turns for an enchantment to not be molested is asking a lot. Its not like we run 20 counterspells to protect the thing. I would rather dedicate slots to specific things, and come up with an alternate win condition against control.
You don't have to do anything except invest 1W and the card, though, so who cares if they remove it? If they spend 1WG and a card, you are ahead. If they are going to save removal specifically for it, then how is it a bad card to be running? It's not like you have no permanents.
Hmm, I hadn't thought about dismember. The thing is, against an aggro deck, I'm not really keen on dropping my own life, whereas against control I need to because they aren't going to do it for me. On the other hand, if I had Timely Reinforcements and Tendrils in the board, bringing in Dismember as well might work great.
As for ghoul, the whole point of the deck is to get low on life and beat down with Death's Shadow. Lacerator is important to this plan when I'm facing a control deck, and is used mostly as a speed bump that I side out when facing aggro.
Well, I've seen a bunch of decks that ramp towards playing an Emrakul, among other possible win conditions. Yes, if your deck does nothing except ramp it will die before it casts Emrakul, but if you are, say, making tons of mana with Elves, or playing a tron strategy that focuses more on stalling than on instantly filling the tron, then maybe you are fine. Or maybe not.
What I'm saying, though, is a) Whether or not those decks beat Zoo is no longer a sufficient condition for them to be played in tournaments, which are now going to see a huge portion of the metagame taken by control decks, and b) putting 1 Ascension maindeck and a couple more in the board only makes this deck stronger. I don't even see where there's a matchup where you wouldn't want to use it as your primary win con instead of decking.
Yeah, Emrakul is still going to be a bad matchup (can't be countered, causes you to sac permanents when he attacks, so you basically can't stop him), and it might have some trouble with Zoo, but I don't know that it can be dismissed just based on that. There's lots of decks that aren't better than 50/50 vs. Zoo that still make up a significant portion of the metagame. If you punt to a deck that's 2% of the metagame, that's shaving down your overall win % by a significant margin. Especially if there's a way to get that matchup into the 40% or better range.
Luminarch Ascension is a good idea for this deck - you are basically stopping people from damaging you, might as well use that to get an Ascension online.
What if you went with a more transformative sideboard? Something like 4 Boomerang, 3-4 Eye of Nowhere, 2-3 Luminarch Ascension, 6-8 hard counters. That would let you ensure an early mana advantage, and then sit on it to get an ascension into play. Or just play gigadrowse, ascension, and counters....
Yeah, I remember your thread. I'm hoping that since we've been over that ground this will be different. My reasons for playing the deck are to exploit Death's Shadow, Beseech the Queen, and Mind Sludge, so I think it's clear why I need to be mono-black or nearly so.
I've thought about trying out Sangrophage, but I'm not sure it's that good. It's a great way to get Death's Shadow online, but it becomes useless pretty quickly, so I'd rather use Bob and Lacerator and just hurt myself with shocklands. Boseiju also helps here.
Another sideboard card I've considered is Timely Reinforcements, instead of all the creature hate. I have a bunch of cards that turn life into card advantage, so comboing that with Timely Reinforcements might actually be nasty (against a deck with creatures). On the other hand, being able to kill opposing creatures is good for not just keeping me alive, but forcing through damage.
The basic idea is to drop your life total to get Death's Shadow online, then clear the way and kill. The white is something I'm experimenting with to help against burn decks and give access to Rest for the Weary. Having shock lands in there is important to the strategy, but it could really be any color.
What do you think? Are there obvious cards I'm missing? Overall, the deck is very disruptive and gains lots of card advantage, but it has a bit of trouble with storm decks, and I haven't yet run into anyone playing a blazing aggro deck. Against them the plan is basically to gain card advantage and do incremental damage, then use Death's Shadow to dominate the board until you can kill with him.
Withered Wretch actually does a whole lot, so I'm thinking of finding space for 2 more.
Yeah, window is bugged right now for me too. Also, Dr. Worm, why not play gifts over careful consideration? It seems far better, and lets you run fewer different reanimation targets = more ways to stay alive/protect your threats.
Ranger of Eos tutors for Norin, and the deck tends to slow down opposing decks enough to get time to find one. I've rarely had a game where the problem was not finding a Norin - mostly the problem has been that it takes a long time to win when you win, so I run out of time on my clock.
Ok, so I decided to go back closer to the roots of this deck for last night's Overdrive! I ended up losing my first match on time, which is a definite danger with this deck - I also lost on time in a 1v1 queue earlier that evening (against storm, because he played empty the warrens for about 30, and my Soul Warden kept triggering my searing meditation). Aside from those two losses, the deck is 1 and 1 so far, beating a burn-heavy zoo deck, and losing to an affinity deck that got inkmoths going right away. Anyway, my opponent in Overdrive! was Diamonti, who eventually won the tournament, so I figured it isn't all that shameful a loss
The manabase is a bit messy, because I wanted to be able to cast Leyline if I didn't have it in the opener, and possibly to splash something green if needed.
As for notes - the deck can be really slow, so it would be nice to have some better way to punch through damage. I sided in the students pretty often, but maybe a Serra Ascendant or two would be good.
Disenchant or something similar might be a good idea, but I'm not loving the reactive cards. It might be better to just take out the tutors and bullets and find some way to streamline the plan of Norin + Champion or Norin + Chamber or Norin + Leyline/Warden + Meditation.
Morbid is not that bad if the upside effect is good enough. Sure, if you are playing a creatureless deck it is harder to make it happen, but even then you can easily double-up removal when it's this cheap. Tragic Slip is probably a better card than Disfigure (which does see some play in Modern), and it's probably a little bit worse than Dismember, but I guess we'll have to see when we can actually play with it.
There's probably 10 or so other cards that do something interesting but perhaps not powerful enough - like Faithless Looting, Thoughtscour (UR Storm...), Gravecrawler, Tragic Slip, Grafdigger's Cage, Erdwal Ripper, Immerwolf, Vault of the Archangel, etc.
I wonder if Curse of Exhaustion will see any play - maybe only if storm becomes particularly good.
I also wonder if Undying Evil could be good in decks that run Snapcaster, and whether Saving Grasp would work in Merfolk. Being able to defeat all sorts of removal twice seems like a good deal.
And lastly, I wonder if there's a fateful hour deck that could be made, that uses Death's Shadow and tries to keep its life total at 5 or less.
The one thing I don't really see in this set is any card that calls out to be broken. While there's plenty of cards that could see play in Modern, none of them (with the possible exception of Sorin 2.0) seem to be powerhouse build-around-me cards like Delver or Past in Flames, or amazing utility cards like Liliana or Snapcaster.
How about something like this:
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Delver of Secrets
Bounce
4 Boomerang
4 Eye of Nowhere
4 Wipe Away
4 Resounding Wave
4 Cryptic Command
Other
4 Howling Mine
2 Jace Beleren
2 Temple Bell
4 Scalding Tarn
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Watery Grave
2 Creeping Tar Pit
2 Celestial Colonnade
12 Island
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Luminarch Ascension
4 Rule of Law
4 Leyline of Sanctity
Here's a few others:
Though really, I'd like to see them print lands like Coffers (which is just for mono-black) or Temple (which is slow) that could help a deck get to 4 mana on turn 3. What was the one from the Wake decks? One of the things that seems strange about Modern is that it is so oppressive on the mana costs of spells because all the mana acceleration is so slow or clunky. Adding some decent acceleration would diversify the format. But maybe the right card doesn't exist yet.
You don't have to do anything except invest 1W and the card, though, so who cares if they remove it? If they spend 1WG and a card, you are ahead. If they are going to save removal specifically for it, then how is it a bad card to be running? It's not like you have no permanents.
As for ghoul, the whole point of the deck is to get low on life and beat down with Death's Shadow. Lacerator is important to this plan when I'm facing a control deck, and is used mostly as a speed bump that I side out when facing aggro.
What I'm saying, though, is a) Whether or not those decks beat Zoo is no longer a sufficient condition for them to be played in tournaments, which are now going to see a huge portion of the metagame taken by control decks, and b) putting 1 Ascension maindeck and a couple more in the board only makes this deck stronger. I don't even see where there's a matchup where you wouldn't want to use it as your primary win con instead of decking.
Luminarch Ascension is a good idea for this deck - you are basically stopping people from damaging you, might as well use that to get an Ascension online.
I've thought about trying out Sangrophage, but I'm not sure it's that good. It's a great way to get Death's Shadow online, but it becomes useless pretty quickly, so I'd rather use Bob and Lacerator and just hurt myself with shocklands. Boseiju also helps here.
Another sideboard card I've considered is Timely Reinforcements, instead of all the creature hate. I have a bunch of cards that turn life into card advantage, so comboing that with Timely Reinforcements might actually be nasty (against a deck with creatures). On the other hand, being able to kill opposing creatures is good for not just keeping me alive, but forcing through damage.
4 Dark Confidant
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Lacerator
4 Death's Shadow
2 Withered Wretch
Spells
4 Beseech the Queen
4 Sign in Blood
4 Thoughtseize
3 Profane Command
1 Mind Sludge
1 Damnation
1 Rest for the Weary
1 Tendrils of Corruption
4 Marsh Flats
4 Godless Shrine
10 Swamp
1 Isolated Chapel
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
2 Ghost Quarter
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Victim of Night
3 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Mind Sludge
1 Persecute
1 Oblivion Ring
The basic idea is to drop your life total to get Death's Shadow online, then clear the way and kill. The white is something I'm experimenting with to help against burn decks and give access to Rest for the Weary. Having shock lands in there is important to the strategy, but it could really be any color.
What do you think? Are there obvious cards I'm missing? Overall, the deck is very disruptive and gains lots of card advantage, but it has a bit of trouble with storm decks, and I haven't yet run into anyone playing a blazing aggro deck. Against them the plan is basically to gain card advantage and do incremental damage, then use Death's Shadow to dominate the board until you can kill with him.
Withered Wretch actually does a whole lot, so I'm thinking of finding space for 2 more.
4 Norin the Wary
4 Champion of the Parish
4 Soul Warden
4 Ranger of Eos
1 Student of Warfare
Other (21)
4 Genesis Chamber
3 Idyllic Tutor
3 Ghostly Prison
4 Leyline of Vitality
2 Searing Meditation
2 Oblivion Ring
1 Nevermore
2 Proclamation of Rebirth
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Temple Garden
2 Clifftop Retreat
1 Copperline Gorge
1 Stomping Ground
4 Arid Mesa
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Mistveil Plains
4 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Forest
1 Leyline of Sanctity
1 Rule of Law
1 Journey to Nowhere
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Proclamation of Rebirth
2 Oblivion Ring
3 Student of Warfare
3 Wrath of God
The manabase is a bit messy, because I wanted to be able to cast Leyline if I didn't have it in the opener, and possibly to splash something green if needed.
As for notes - the deck can be really slow, so it would be nice to have some better way to punch through damage. I sided in the students pretty often, but maybe a Serra Ascendant or two would be good.
Disenchant or something similar might be a good idea, but I'm not loving the reactive cards. It might be better to just take out the tutors and bullets and find some way to streamline the plan of Norin + Champion or Norin + Chamber or Norin + Leyline/Warden + Meditation.