This was the deck list I ran at States over the weekend. It is mostly the same as the one I posted a little while back, but I cut the discard down quite a bit to buff the counterspell suite as well as the creature removal to help with all the aggro match ups. I didn't write down extensive notes but I'll run through a general outline of the 6 rounds. This was my 2nd modern event ever (and the first event that was actually pretty competitive and legit) so needless to say I was a little nervous at first and probably made a few too many mistakes.
Round One: BG Rock
My opponent was running an old school Rock deck I never thought I'd see at this tournament (he was a fantastic guy who was just trying to enjoy himself). I had a lot of Phyrexian Obliterator's running my way. I kept an awful hand that I should have shipped game one for a very quick loss (stuck on 2 land). I sided in some of my creature removal and figured I'd be able to hold out on very few changes if I kept a real hand to start out. The second match ended swiftly after a few key Spell Snares and Mana Leaks kept the path open for my Tasigur to take over. Match three I managed to run my Murderous Cut and some Snapcastered Terminates over to keep his board clear and he ran out of steam once I killed his 3rd Obliterator in 4 turns. 1-0
Round Two: Abzan
This round was against the Tier 1 Abzan midrange build. It appeared pretty straight forward and it didn't seem like he was running any unique tech in it. First game I once again kept a terrible 7 (still getting over my nervousness) and he Rhino'd me into the ground. I wasn't very pleased to have to deal with BGx my first two rounds of my day as I was hoping to have at least one match to ease into but oh well, I sucked it up and ran with it. I boarded in some skites, creature removal, and some new counter magic tricks into game 2. I kept a solid 7 this time and managed to stall out through his Rhino's to land a Batterskull down. He Decayed the token but I managed to ambush viper in a Snapcaster and start swinging in with that instead. He couldn't top deck an answer and so we moved into game 3. I kept the same plan and managed to clear out some of his early game aggression. He proceeded to top deck several Lingering Souls in a row and I couldn't find enough answers for all the tokens. I fought valiantly, but I couldn't pull it off. 1-1
Round Three: Tarmo-Twin
This will be the last round where I have the tournament jitters and buckle down for the long haul. Game one he gets mana screwed but I notice his color combination and fear it is a Tarmo-Twin match up. He eventually gets a few cards online, but I have the answers ready and waiting to clear his board and lock up game one. I didn't see enough to know for sure, but I assume he is in fact Tarmo-Twin so I board in some skites and counter magic just in case (leaving the Rakdos Charms for now in case I'm wrong). Game two is a long, drawn out affair. We keep clearing each others threats when I realize that a. he is in fact running Tarmo-Twin and b. he boarded the twin piece out. He jams down a Keranos and whittles me away to tie it up 1-1. Game three I keep the previous changes just in case he decides to sneak it back in but I put a Keranos of my own in. Our last match starts out the same as round 2. However he manages to jam several Tarmogoyf's down onto the board and hit me before I Damnation them off the table. He once again lands his only Keranos while mine is no where in site and plinks away at me until I'm at 0. I'm not as nervous anymore at this point, but I am disappointed at my luck that round. 1-2
Round Four: Infect
As soon as a I dropped a 2nd loss, I assumed I'd get a reprieve from the top tier decks to get me a chance to rebound with a win, but behold, my 4th round opponent begins round one with an Inkmoth Nexus and the race is on. I manage to Terminate some of his lands, but as soon as I am forced to start bolting his critters he begins pumping and I drop game one. What luck I have, to drop to 1-2 and still face top tier decks. I side in my Chalices, my creature removal, and my skites. Game 2 I fire off a quick start, snap-bolting his critters followed by landing a Tasigur down on the table. He got stuck on 2 land and couldn't handle the Tasigur. I feel like my deck is beginning to work with me now and I'm calming down. Game three he mulls down to 5 but it is the exact 5 cards he needed. He gets off to a thunderous start putting 6 poison on me before I can clear his Nexus and some of his other critters out. He top decks a few creature buffs before he manages to grab any new threats, but by that point my hand was loaded and he couldn't land another card down onto the field. 2-2
Round Five: 8Rack
After that 2nd loss in round 3, I assumed my night was over but I wanted to keep going for the experience sake so I pressed on. Game one makes it immediately obvious what he is trying to run. He gets a little tight on mana while I get flooded (making most of this discard spells miss). He starts swinging with his Mutavault but luckily I have a Tarpit down to race him, and we all know which one wins that race. I keep the rest of the lands in my hand to shut off his Rack's and he doesn't find a way to stop the Tarpit. Game two I side in my Negates and Chalices plus a Keranos just in case. I draw a flooded 7, but it worked out well for me round one so I kept it. Wise decision as he once again began missing with his discard while I plopped down a Tasigur to keep my hand plump and proceed to shut down 3 Lilliana's in 3 turns with Negate, Mana Leak, and Electrolyze into a Lightning Bolt. Afterwords I plop down a Chalice on 1 and run away with it. 3-2
Round Six: U/R Twin
Of course, just to round out my wonderful day I get another twin deck. Game one goes back and forth, me shutting down his combo when he tries to go, him clearing my threats I attempt to play. He gets a few too many free hits on me and bolt-snap-bolts me away. I put in my usual suspects for Twin to get ready for game 2. He Clique's my hand to check for threats on my upkeep and clears out my one counter. I draw a Clique of my own afterwords and pass the turn for him to jam down a Exarch with him thinking my hand was now clear. In response I throw my Clique down, burying his Splinter Twin he thought he'd get to land and he proceeds to top deck nothing but irrelevant Dispels and land until I get to end his misery with a Batterskull. Our two matches went too long, and we saw we had only about 10 minutes for game three so we tried to pick up the pace. He tries to land some Blood Moon tech down but I Negate it. We manage to both get some healthy swings in on each other before I wipe the board and land a Tasigur with some Tarpits on the board. At this point we were about a minute away from going into turns, and he had the mana ready to try and land the combo whenever he felt he had the window. I was sitting on nothing but counters so I had to choose between rushing him with my Tasigur and Tarpits and hoping he didn't have it or trying to play conservatively to make sure I could counter his combo and hope I could top deck a faster answer to finish him in turns. I chose the conservative route (I'm not much of a gambler ) and he did try to jam the combo down right as we went into turns. I shut it down with a Logic Knot (what a monster of a card, by the way) and a Leak for his response. At this point I still didn't feel comfortable enough to try and tap out to push enough damage through so we ended up timing out.
Final: 3-2-1
I was comfortable taking the draw and it turned out I wouldn't have made the top 8 even if I had gone all out and gone for the win so my conservative ways paid off. I managed to squeak into the top 16 at my record with my opponent from the last round right above me. Overall I felt it was a great day and considering it was more or less my first real event for modern I was happy to come away with a positive record and a top 16 for my effort.
The only card I felt was a disappointment at all was the Jace's I was running. I only managed to land him twice, and while he was decently effective both times, I had a lot of games against a lot of aggro decks where I just couldn't afford the turn to cast him and I probably should have just boarded him out. It's a work in progress but overall I feel good about where the deck is at. Let me know if you want to know specifics about how any certain card or cards performed. I tried to trim most details to keep this post a healthy length, haha.
I'll do a run through later on if anyone wants to hear about it, but I played in the TCG Player States tournament yesterday and I managed to nab a spot in the top 16 out of 50 something players. Played against a lot of solid decks so it was nice to see that a relatively inexperienced tournament player (myself) could walk in with Cruel and still place positively. A few highlights were that Tasigur, Engineered Explosives, and Batterskull are just monsters in the main deck (at least they did a lot of work for me).
Just got back from modern tuesday night at LGS. Went 2-1-1 again with my build. I feel like all the changes I made to the list have been rock solid. Round 1 was against s homebrew esper gifts shell, which i originally thought was on monastery mentor midrange. He tried to outgrind me with batterskull, kitchen finks, unburual rites, and lingering souls piles, but i overcame with jace game 1. He literally could not beat jace after i slammed it with logic knot up. Got it up to 9 counters and he scooped with souls tokens on the board. Game 2 he managed to outgrind me with unburial rites on wurmcoil engine. Game 3 we drew after a really awesome grindy game involving him giftsitng for duress, inquisition, thoughtseize, duress, and snapcaster mage (gave him inquisition and duress since it couldn't take the Grave Dadd in m hand). I had multiple bombs in hand(cruel ultimatum, cryptic command, damnation, consume the meek, electrolyze,) and the only card inquisition could take was electrolyze, Duress ended up taking the Cruel ultimatum a few turns down the line after he snapcassterd it back. Managed to snapcaster cryptic tap his guys and bounce his tarpit before I died, attach a batterskull to my snapcater and proceed to draw the game. If he hadn't duressed the cruel ultimatum he would've died, though.
Round 2 I played someone on Kithkin WW.Game 1 I managed to cruel and snapcaster back cruel for ultimate sadistic funsies. Game 2 was not much different, though I kept a sketchy hand which I wouldn't have been surprised if I lost with. Luckily my uppage to 27 lands was sweet and let me get out of my early color stumbles. Damnation singlehandedly won the game after I wrathed her two guys.
Round 3 was against a good burn player. Game 1 he does his thing, I only have remand in hand so I die very quickly to his swiftspear on the play. Game 2 I was doing well with my dragon's claw on the board, but I made a game losing play when I mana leaked his lightning helix (it was bait in order to resolve his destructive revelry). From now on I don't think i'll counter anything that doesn't interact with my sideboard hosers. Felt just a lil salty to lose to my misplay, but that's part of the game. Control decks are hard to pilot perfectly but that is also part of what makes it so much fun.
Round 4 was against a guy on some elf ramp deck. The game were not very eventful as he mulled to 4 on the play G1. G2 I had batterskull, jace, and curse of death's hold at some point so he couldn't get out of that.
Logic knot was great whenever I drew it. Jace still continues to be the undisputed Champ. One game against affinity in testing I managed to ultimate this guy and get a batterskull effectively ending the game. Grave Titan out of the side was cool, but I feel like Olivi Voldaren might be better in the slot since it's cheaper and it would be just as good if not better in the same matchups where I want Grave Titan. Consume the Meek was rock solid since I could keep it up to blow up manlands, it's still probably better as a damnation.
Is Jorubai Murklurker playable instead of Dragon's Claw? The fact that it negates the inevitable Destructive Revelry's that they bring in postboard is a big selling point. Furthermore, it brickwalls Eidolon and Goblin Guide, and needs to get double bolted to be killed. Anyone tried it out? I want a dispel in the sideboard; that card seems very good right now.
Great job man! Glad to hear Jace and Damnation are doing some work. I keep trying to talk myself out of Jace, but he consistently over performs. I just feel wrong having him at a sorcery speed 4 drop while already using Damnations and I am afraid it might clog up the deck a little. I was going to practice this weekend with Logic Knot and a few more counters by cutting my discard to see how I liked it. I feel like the Murklurker is just too slow for what we would need as far as burn goes. I've had most of my success against the deck running Spellskite's, Flashfreeze, and Dispel. With a kill spell or two and a Spellskite down you can keep their critters at bay and the Flashfreeze/Dispel in hand will keep their top decking power to a minimum. It is still hard to handle if they get a dream 7 to start the game, but I feel like I've had some decent success at stalling them out to stabilize. I hate running Dragon's Claw in the side because it is just so limited in its use whereas I could see running Flashfreeze, Dispel, and Spellskite against several other match ups. It is a matter of taste but I like to keep my options is flexible as possible in the side.
Part of what makes Kologans Command good is the versatilit. The fact that ou can pack a mainboard answer to Batterskull which is also good against other decks like affinity is pretty sweet. Definitely requires testing, and like I've said before, probably not more than a one-of.
Changes i've made to the maind deck
-Vendilion Clique
-Tamiyo
-Mana Leak
-Murderous Cut
-Drowned Catacomb
-Mystical Teachings
-Shadow of Doubt
+Grave Titan
+Keranos
+Consume The Meek
+Logic Knot
+Sunken Ruin
+Terminate
+Jace, Architect of Thought
Already explained my thoughts on Tamiyo on my last post, changed her for Keranos. Grave Titan replacess Clique because I wanted a way to close out the game faster against Midrange decks. Clique is also just terrible against Lingering Souls which is all over the place. Along the same train of thought, cut the Teachings for Jace number 2 because, while teachings was good, if it was a Jace it would've been just as good or better (also insane against lingering souls, affinity, and deceiver exarch twin) Cut a mana leak for a logic knot so I could have a counter that is still insane in the late game (plus interacts well with Tasigur). To accomodate the counter, I put in Sunken Ruins switching out Drowned Catacomb. Cut out the Shadow of Doubt because it's just too cute and even when I got an opponent with it he just serum visioned into more lands. Consume the meek has been good so far, but mabe it should just be a second damnation.
I like some of those changes. I've been playing around with ideas of having at least 1 MD copy of Logic Knot to help the counter spell suite a little bit. I've been torn lately on cutting out my 3 MD discard spells to make room for some more consistent counters and creature removal (bumping up my numbers on Terminate, Spell Snare, and a Logic Knot). The only problem with it is that I feel that discard would then have to take a large amount of side board space to make up for it. Jace, Architect of Thought really has been a force for me in some games and does a lot of heavy lifting. If you cut the Mystical Teachings out, there isn't a lot of reason to have a main deck Consume the Meek in my opinion when you could just slide another Damnation in its place. I feel like Grave Titan is a little clunky and if you just wanted a big body to put a clock on them, I'd say that Thundermaw Hellkite does that job better with haste plus it addresses your Lingering Souls issue. I have to say I feel myself pushing my main deck heavily to handle aggro and creature based strategies as they seem to have the strongest showings in Modern right now which is why I haven't mained a Keranos yet, but I love him in the side for control match ups (such as the mono blue tron match up I was struggling with).
So the spoiler for Dragons is complete so I thought I'd give my run down of any of the cards I thought might be at least interesting to think about, not that I find ANY of our options that exciting. I also managed to play about 5 matches against Mono Blue Tron so I figured I'd share how those matches went as well. Here are my list of thoughts about Dragons:
Blue:
Anticipate: Another option for our card draw at the 2CMC slot. I've said before that I don't like running vanilla draw spells with Tasigur, but I have to say I always prefer the type that are instant speed and dig further for us, so this is more my style than Think Twice or Serum Visions.
Encase in Ice: Too cute, too specific, not as efficient as other options. Having flash does make it at least more playable than most of the types of cards I see like this.
Living Lore: Cute card again with a very interesting ability. However not worth the cost or space. As funny as it would be to have a walking Cruel on the board, it'll never go off.
Mirror Mockery: This one is the most interesting of the blue choices, but once again in most cases just not as efficient as straight removal.
Silumgar Sorcerer: I wish they made the exploit cards good. Such a waste.
Kolaghan's Command: Maybe SB quality for at least Affinity decks. Pretty low impact.
So all in all, not great. I might end up picking up a few if I need to add a few dollars to an order for free shipping, otherwise I'm in no rush for any of these.
As far as the Mono Blue Tron match up, man that deck is brutal for other control decks to face off against. That deck wants nothing more than to sit around and build advantage. Spell Burst is insane against us once they have tron online and we have to always be wary of Sundering Titan and Mindslaver. A lot of my main deck spells are fairly weak in that match up such as Spell Snare, Mana Leak, and Engineered Explosives. Besides some land destruction and switching around to some hard counters from the SB, I think it is a fairly tough match up to win against right now. Let me know your experiences against it.
What is the minimum number of creatures to make 2 RB commands worth it? I'm thinking 3 snaps, 2 Clique and 2 Tasigur but have not decided.
That might work, but I've had games where I've run a Cruel Ultimatum out on turn 7 or 8 and not had a target in my graveyard so you might be out of luck on a few draws.
Game 1- I keep a good hand, he thoughtseizes and takes a Rune Snag. I topdeck another one and counter the second thoughtseize. I kill all his early plays and slam a Keranos on turn 5. I stall until he dies from Keranos triggers.
-2 Spell Snare -1 Cruel Ultimatum +2 Batterskull +1 Wurmcoil Engine
Game 2- We trade resources and I eventually land a batterskull and a wurmcoil engine. I was at 2 life and stabilized with the two brutes. GG
1-0
Round 2: Affinity
Game 1- I get blown out by an explosive hand from him.
Game 2- I get him low on resources after using two damnations. We topdeck for a bit with me beating down on him using Creeping Tar Pit. He gets double cranial plating on etched champion GG.
1-1
Round 3: GR Tron
Game 1- Killed by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
Game 2- I go molten rain---> snapcaster--->molten rain slam Mogis GG
Main deck Gods were a beating. No one had answers and I ran away with games while they were on the table. Wurmcoil Engine took over the game against the abzan player. Slaughter Games seems Meh against many matchups, but it is a necessary evil.
Sounds like another productive night of testing. The Affinity match up is always tough. Shatterstorm could be great, but it is a little slow. I definitely lean more towards Shattering Spree, Hurkyll's Recall, etc.
Tron is a match up I haven't had a lot of practice against (besides the Mono-U version). I can only imagine how tough it can be to stall some of their creatures out, but this is something I am afraid my sideboard is pretty weak against.
Overall I'd say that is a good night against some high quality decks. I'm glad to hear the God's have been doing some work for you. I've always had doubts about Mogis. It seems like the match ups I'd want his sacrifice ability on they'd just eat the 2 damage a few turns and stomp me down. At the same time, I see you run a lot more creature removal than I do so it might not be so bad of a problem.
@Trextik : I feel it is pretty hard to pull off a Cruel Ultimatum as a singleton without some help to dig for it. I find most of my Cruel's lately have been coming off of Jace, Architect of Thought using his -8 or from Tasigur flipping it into my hand. You have your Telling Times to help out but I think you might just have to take a cut on something else to make room for a second one if you want it to be more reliable. Maybe trim a Terminate or Shadow of Doubt ?
Great questions. Regarding the singleton Tasigur, it's been great. Being able to pressure combo and control opponents early while keeping up disruption is solid. It's entirely possible that there should be 2 copies in the list, but I wouldn't know what to cut and I'm not convinced hard control shells want more than one. Murderous cut was pretty solid last night in all the games I saw it in, but it really wasn't any better than a terminate would've been. Terminate also has the non-regeneration clause which can come up against opponents playing Golgari Charm. Terminate is also cheaper if you're playing against an aggro deck like zoo where murderous cut would maybe take a turn or 2 more to play.
Well, Teachings was rock solid last night. I got everything ranging from cryptic command, snapcaster, electrolyze, and counterflux. Like I previously said, there were atleast two times, and potentially a third time where it would've been good but I just didn't think about it, that I resolved teachings and all I wanted to get was Consume the Meek. I cut an electrolyze right now to make room for Consume, but maybe it should just be the Vendilion Clique since it'sa bit of a nonbo? Anyway, Teachings doesn't fetch a fatspell, but maybe you're underestimating just getting a snapcaster. By that point you should have plenty of cryptics and bolts in your graveyard that will close out the game pretty quick. Along the same train of thought, fetching a Clique is a good way to put pressure on your opponent while not needing to tap out, possibly clearing the way for one of your sorcery speed bombs. I was trying to think up of cool powerful stuff to try to finish the game with at instand speed and I thought of...Empty the Pits lel. Would maybe be workable if it was 3 black, but 4 is way rough. Didn't really feel like Mystical Teachings was just stuck in my hand doing nothing, not even against mono red goblins...
All of that being said, I would not be surprised if Teachings just isn't good enough in the meta and is just too cute. Maybe it should just be Jace number 2. Though, all it could take to make teachings viable is just one or two additions to the deck. Which bring us to Kologan's Command. I'm stoked to playtest the card as I feel it has solid applications in the metagame. As a way to outgrind midrange and control decks, seems like a good addition (make them discard, get back snapcaster). Straight up kill two of affinity's guys pretty much all the time (destroy artifact, deal two to target creature). Finally, it just goes to the face for 2. Don't really think it could be more than a 1 of in the deck, though. Card seems ridiiiculous with Fulminator Mage.
I'll play the deck again next week and report back. Hopefully with better notes on my matches.
The Grave Titan was a last minute sideboard addition since I saw thought it was good tech against this one guy who I would've enjoyed to dream crush. Never got to draw it, but it would've been very good against the Fabiano BUG deck.
That brings up a lot of interesting ideas. Firstly, I love the Tasigur as a 2 of just because of how well he works as a creature for a control shell. Not only is he a clock on the game (or a blocker if need be) but his ability is extremely potent. I've done a lot of tooling with my deck to play nice with his activations and I have seen some good results. I removed the draw spells I was running (Telling Time/Think Twice/Serum Visions) and made sure I was running cantrips for my digging needs (Remand/Electrolyze). This way whatever I throw into my graveyard has value if I activate Tasigur. I found my opponents would gladly just throw me back my Telling Time or Serum Visions if any of them were left stranded in the graveyard. However now the only options for them to pick are spells that can have an impact besides card draw. I've been running with a theme that is trying to tie all the cards in the deck together a little better. Which brings me to Teachings.
I've never run the Teachings deck so that is why I asked for your opinion on it. I've just never been comfortable trying to force the deck to play nice with that card, however it appears you guys have been seeing some good results so who knows! I just know I enjoy running Damnation, Cruel Ultimatum, Batterskull, Jace, Architect of Thought, etc and those cards don't play well with Teachings. The ability to fetch anything out of your deck is always strong, but I'm just not sure it is what we need when it doesn't interact with a lot of our more powerful spells. We'll just have to keep testing to find out!
How has your testing with Jace gone? I've been running 2 just to try and get him into the games more often to see how I like him. Granted I've only practiced against a lot of the aggro decks so far, but it feels like he has a strong case for being at least a singleton in the deck, but I'm not sold on 2 yet.
Finally, it sounds like you and ppkitty have at least some good experiences running Grave Titan so that is something I might have to try in the place of some of the late game cards. I'll add it to the list with Keranos, God of Storms and Thundermaw Hellkite as possible SB tech.
Just got back from modern night at my LGS. Went 2-1-1, though the last round was a concession to me because i was live for store credit and my opponent was not. This is the deck I played:
First round was against Fabianos Sultai Deck that took down the open recently. Won game one after trading resources and landing a cruel ultimatum when my opponent was down to one mana untapped. Games two and three were the same in that he just shredded my hand with thoughtseizes and inquisitions and killed me with tarmogoys/tasigur/thragtusk. He is a very good player so I asked about my sideboard plan (brought in Clique, Negate, Shackles, Counterflux, Grave Titan). Mostly just asked about the hand disruption and he said that because he was blue, I should've brought it in against him. Don't really remember what I sided out. Ashiok was terrible against me, though. lolz
Second round was against a mono red Goblins brew. Game one I managed to stabilize the board, but he steals the game with a timely goblin grenade and a lightning bolt. I sided out the heavy stuff and brought in the dragon's claw, negate, flashfreeze, clique, and duress. Game two and three I managed to land early dragon's claws and kill all his stuff. I was dead on board game three but ripped a clutch damnation to effectively end the game. What I took away from this round and the following one was that I definitely want to be able to tutor for Consume The Meek because tutorable instant speed wraths are sweet.
Round three was against my good friend Shawn on UW midrange. I was stuck on 2 lands for the majority of game one while he just kept playing lands, eventually slamming a gideon to which I conceded. I sided in duress, thoughtseize, Vendilion Clique, Negate, Vedalken Shackles, and Grave Titan. Shackles was the allstar in the Game 2 grindfest. He had snapcaster, Restoration Angels, Meddling Mages, Cliques, Mindcensors and Colonnades which all got wrecked by the Shackles. I managed to resolve a Tamiyo at some point (protecting it with Counterflux) to lock down one of his Colonnades, and it was okay, but It felt really underwhelming. Slammed a Batterskull which started gaining me life and getting me past colonnade range after she died. Shortly thereafter I topdecked a Cruel Ultimatum and sealed the game. We drew becaue there was literally a minute left on the clock at this point.
Last round was against scapeshift. Game one I got stuck on two lands for a while, he did his thing and killed me. I felt like my sideboard was insane against this deck. Slaughter Games'd my opponent naming scapeshift and got three out of his deck, but he ripped a thrun two turns later and killed me with it since I sided out my damnation because I forgot about that card.
Overall, I can't say i'm too disappointed with my results since this was my first Modern event since 2013. Definitely feel like I want to get rid of Tamiyo and just play Keranos. Want one more Damnation in the sideboard or in the main because I always wanted to draw it and for sure one Consume the Meek in the main. Slaughter Pact was been clutch during all my testing and it was still good tonight. Maybe the murderous cut will get...cut for a terminate, though.
Sounds like overall it was a good night . I just had a few questions about the list to get your thoughts and to compare to my own. First, how does the single copy of Tasigur run for you? I just began running him this past week and a half as a 2-of and I've had fantastic results from him, I was just wondering how the singleton was running for you. I'm adding a single copy of Murderous Cut to my deck for flexibility but also to help trim the graveyard if it gets too clunky for the Tasigur activations. I was also thinking about a single Slaughter Pact and it sounds like it worked well for you so I will have to try that out as well.
Second, how has the Teachings worked for you? I just always felt that the mana cost for the Teachings was too high to get a lot of flexibility out of it. It felt like most of the time you could only reliably get a cheap removal spell such as a Terminate or Slaughter Pact or something like Spell Snare. Most of our end game cards can't be fetched with it (Planeswalkers, Batterskull, Cruel, Tasigur) so I thought it might just be better to use that slot for something else.
Lastly, what do you usually bring the Grave Titan in for, and what do you cut to make room for it? I was always interested in this tech but never looked too much into it before.
For now this list did pretty well for me. Card MB I'm not sure would be:Shadow of doubt and Keranos, did any of you guys did try 3 Tasigur? I have only 2 and before buyinganother one I would like some feedbacks. I play with no discard MB for a while now and it did good till now. Also im not sure for the lighthouse, sometimes its awsome and sometimesits the card I hate the most on my side of the table. My personnal all-star ould be Telling time, this card is awsome and IMO this card is way understimated in modern.
Sorry for my English
I definitely feel that Tasigur is strongest as a 2-of. You don't want to flood with him because he is legendary. I love Telling Time a lot as a draw spell and I used to main 3 of them as well until very recently. From my experience so far, I find that Tasigur's ability is extremely important with him on the field and that made me take a hard look at the draw spells. If you are milling with Tasigur you want your graveyard to be filled with nothing but threats, and using his delve and cards like Murderous Cut go a long way in sculpting your graveyard for him. However I found that too many times I'd have a single copy of Telling Time/Serum Visions/Shadow of Doubt and my opponent would just gladly give that back to me instead of the other cards that have more immediate impact.
As far as Keranos goes, I haven't gotten my copies yet to play around with him in the main but if you are looking for other late game engines Jace, Architect of Thought has really been impressing me more and more so you might want to consider running him just to see how he feels for your style. Batterskull is also powerful as an evasive end game option if you want to go that route. Even Thundermaw Hellkite is sitting nicely with all the Lingering Souls decks running around.
Yeah, like I said the side board is pretty place holder-y right now. I have Shattering Spree and Shatterstorm to try out, but I haven't even touched the Affinity match up yet so once I get to practicing that I'll rotate some of those cards around.
The Engineered Explosives has been helpful main board but I'm still not 100% on it. I will play around with it for another week and let you know how it goes. I ran it against Death & Taxes, Burn, and Stompy to try out some of the aggro matches and it performed fairly well there. Once they know you have it, it usually only gets to go 1-for-1 but just the idea that they have to play it a little more cautiously is a win against decks like those anyway.
With this deck starting to show a little more life in the format I figured it was about time I put my deck list up. I've been playing Cruel on and off for a while and this is where my deck is currently sitting at now.
My deck is in a state of flux right now as I've just recently begun testing some of the cards I put in the list (Jace AoT, Clique, Tasigur, Explosives). The sideboard is more or less just a place holder for now until I am done playing around with the main board. Here are my thoughts so far and ideas I have for changing.
Jace, Architect of Thought: I've only run him out in a few matches so far, but he seems to do quite a bit of work when he is out. I have two in currently just to try and run him out more often and I am afraid of him clogging some starting hands, but so far my impressions are he might warrant 1 or 2 spots. Any other thoughts are appreciated on this.
Vendilion Clique: I wasn't sure if I would be comfortable running these with the Tasigurs as I didn't want to have that many creatures in the main board. A handful of matches have shown me it is definitely worth running as a 2-of given the space. I was torn on discard spells (more on that later) but the Clique has some nice disruption and presents a strong clock/blocker.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang: Wow this guy is a champ. After a handful of games I could feel his immediate impact. His body hitting the board presents a huge challenge for the opponents and a few ticks of his ability can generate some huge advantage. He is 100% a 2 slot card. No more, no less.
Engineered Explosives: I saw this in a few recent lists running main board (I used to run 2 or 3 in the side) and I thought I'd give it a shot. I've had some pretty strong results with it. Being able to sweep off artifacts and enchantments is a huge deal for this deck. The threat it puts on tokens is also great. I'm feeling this was a great addition as well.
Here are my thoughts on a few of the other cards I'm not 100% on in the list.
Inquisition of Kozilek: I used to run 4-5 discard spells as a mix between Inquisition and Thoughtseize but I found the life lost from using Thoughtseize in a lot of match ups was too much mixed with the fetches and shocks. I switched to 3 Inquisitions only main board as it can still get a ton of value in almost all match ups and if nothing gives me a view of their hand. I have seen quite a few lists have cut discard from the main completely and I'm tempted to try it, but for now it stays.
Mana Leak: This stands for the counterspell's in general. I used to run 3 Mana Leak, 3 Spell Snare, and the 3 Remands. I cut a few slots down to make room for some of the current changes and I'm not sold 100% on the balance or card count. If Jace or something else was cut these might be the first numbers to change around but only time can tell.
Murderous Cut: I don't run any because my copies are in the mail now, but I plan on fitting 1 copy in the main board as cheap removal plus it helps get more value out of Tasigur's ability in the late game.
Let me know what you think. I've got some more testing to do today and next weekend before I rotate some cards and try a few other things out.
3 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Island
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Desolate Lighthouse
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Terminate
2 Electrolyze
2 Damnation
2 Cryptic Command
2 Mana Leak
3 Spell Snare
3 Remand
1 Logic Knot
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Batterskull
1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Keranos, God of Storms
2 Thoughtseize
2 Flashfreeze
2 Negate
1 Murderous Cut
1 Slaughter Pact
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Rakdos Charm
2 Spellskite
This was the deck list I ran at States over the weekend. It is mostly the same as the one I posted a little while back, but I cut the discard down quite a bit to buff the counterspell suite as well as the creature removal to help with all the aggro match ups. I didn't write down extensive notes but I'll run through a general outline of the 6 rounds. This was my 2nd modern event ever (and the first event that was actually pretty competitive and legit) so needless to say I was a little nervous at first and probably made a few too many mistakes.
Round One: BG Rock
My opponent was running an old school Rock deck I never thought I'd see at this tournament (he was a fantastic guy who was just trying to enjoy himself). I had a lot of Phyrexian Obliterator's running my way. I kept an awful hand that I should have shipped game one for a very quick loss (stuck on 2 land). I sided in some of my creature removal and figured I'd be able to hold out on very few changes if I kept a real hand to start out. The second match ended swiftly after a few key Spell Snares and Mana Leaks kept the path open for my Tasigur to take over. Match three I managed to run my Murderous Cut and some Snapcastered Terminates over to keep his board clear and he ran out of steam once I killed his 3rd Obliterator in 4 turns. 1-0
Round Two: Abzan
This round was against the Tier 1 Abzan midrange build. It appeared pretty straight forward and it didn't seem like he was running any unique tech in it. First game I once again kept a terrible 7 (still getting over my nervousness) and he Rhino'd me into the ground. I wasn't very pleased to have to deal with BGx my first two rounds of my day as I was hoping to have at least one match to ease into but oh well, I sucked it up and ran with it. I boarded in some skites, creature removal, and some new counter magic tricks into game 2. I kept a solid 7 this time and managed to stall out through his Rhino's to land a Batterskull down. He Decayed the token but I managed to ambush viper in a Snapcaster and start swinging in with that instead. He couldn't top deck an answer and so we moved into game 3. I kept the same plan and managed to clear out some of his early game aggression. He proceeded to top deck several Lingering Souls in a row and I couldn't find enough answers for all the tokens. I fought valiantly, but I couldn't pull it off. 1-1
Round Three: Tarmo-Twin
This will be the last round where I have the tournament jitters and buckle down for the long haul. Game one he gets mana screwed but I notice his color combination and fear it is a Tarmo-Twin match up. He eventually gets a few cards online, but I have the answers ready and waiting to clear his board and lock up game one. I didn't see enough to know for sure, but I assume he is in fact Tarmo-Twin so I board in some skites and counter magic just in case (leaving the Rakdos Charms for now in case I'm wrong). Game two is a long, drawn out affair. We keep clearing each others threats when I realize that a. he is in fact running Tarmo-Twin and b. he boarded the twin piece out. He jams down a Keranos and whittles me away to tie it up 1-1. Game three I keep the previous changes just in case he decides to sneak it back in but I put a Keranos of my own in. Our last match starts out the same as round 2. However he manages to jam several Tarmogoyf's down onto the board and hit me before I Damnation them off the table. He once again lands his only Keranos while mine is no where in site and plinks away at me until I'm at 0. I'm not as nervous anymore at this point, but I am disappointed at my luck that round. 1-2
Round Four: Infect
As soon as a I dropped a 2nd loss, I assumed I'd get a reprieve from the top tier decks to get me a chance to rebound with a win, but behold, my 4th round opponent begins round one with an Inkmoth Nexus and the race is on. I manage to Terminate some of his lands, but as soon as I am forced to start bolting his critters he begins pumping and I drop game one. What luck I have, to drop to 1-2 and still face top tier decks. I side in my Chalices, my creature removal, and my skites. Game 2 I fire off a quick start, snap-bolting his critters followed by landing a Tasigur down on the table. He got stuck on 2 land and couldn't handle the Tasigur. I feel like my deck is beginning to work with me now and I'm calming down. Game three he mulls down to 5 but it is the exact 5 cards he needed. He gets off to a thunderous start putting 6 poison on me before I can clear his Nexus and some of his other critters out. He top decks a few creature buffs before he manages to grab any new threats, but by that point my hand was loaded and he couldn't land another card down onto the field. 2-2
Round Five: 8Rack
After that 2nd loss in round 3, I assumed my night was over but I wanted to keep going for the experience sake so I pressed on. Game one makes it immediately obvious what he is trying to run. He gets a little tight on mana while I get flooded (making most of this discard spells miss). He starts swinging with his Mutavault but luckily I have a Tarpit down to race him, and we all know which one wins that race. I keep the rest of the lands in my hand to shut off his Rack's and he doesn't find a way to stop the Tarpit. Game two I side in my Negates and Chalices plus a Keranos just in case. I draw a flooded 7, but it worked out well for me round one so I kept it. Wise decision as he once again began missing with his discard while I plopped down a Tasigur to keep my hand plump and proceed to shut down 3 Lilliana's in 3 turns with Negate, Mana Leak, and Electrolyze into a Lightning Bolt. Afterwords I plop down a Chalice on 1 and run away with it. 3-2
Round Six: U/R Twin
Of course, just to round out my wonderful day I get another twin deck. Game one goes back and forth, me shutting down his combo when he tries to go, him clearing my threats I attempt to play. He gets a few too many free hits on me and bolt-snap-bolts me away. I put in my usual suspects for Twin to get ready for game 2. He Clique's my hand to check for threats on my upkeep and clears out my one counter. I draw a Clique of my own afterwords and pass the turn for him to jam down a Exarch with him thinking my hand was now clear. In response I throw my Clique down, burying his Splinter Twin he thought he'd get to land and he proceeds to top deck nothing but irrelevant Dispels and land until I get to end his misery with a Batterskull. Our two matches went too long, and we saw we had only about 10 minutes for game three so we tried to pick up the pace. He tries to land some Blood Moon tech down but I Negate it. We manage to both get some healthy swings in on each other before I wipe the board and land a Tasigur with some Tarpits on the board. At this point we were about a minute away from going into turns, and he had the mana ready to try and land the combo whenever he felt he had the window. I was sitting on nothing but counters so I had to choose between rushing him with my Tasigur and Tarpits and hoping he didn't have it or trying to play conservatively to make sure I could counter his combo and hope I could top deck a faster answer to finish him in turns. I chose the conservative route (I'm not much of a gambler
Final: 3-2-1
I was comfortable taking the draw and it turned out I wouldn't have made the top 8 even if I had gone all out and gone for the win so my conservative ways paid off. I managed to squeak into the top 16 at my record with my opponent from the last round right above me. Overall I felt it was a great day and considering it was more or less my first real event for modern I was happy to come away with a positive record and a top 16 for my effort.
The only card I felt was a disappointment at all was the Jace's I was running. I only managed to land him twice, and while he was decently effective both times, I had a lot of games against a lot of aggro decks where I just couldn't afford the turn to cast him and I probably should have just boarded him out. It's a work in progress but overall I feel good about where the deck is at. Let me know if you want to know specifics about how any certain card or cards performed. I tried to trim most details to keep this post a healthy length, haha.
Great job man! Glad to hear Jace and Damnation are doing some work. I keep trying to talk myself out of Jace, but he consistently over performs. I just feel wrong having him at a sorcery speed 4 drop while already using Damnations and I am afraid it might clog up the deck a little. I was going to practice this weekend with Logic Knot and a few more counters by cutting my discard to see how I liked it. I feel like the Murklurker is just too slow for what we would need as far as burn goes. I've had most of my success against the deck running Spellskite's, Flashfreeze, and Dispel. With a kill spell or two and a Spellskite down you can keep their critters at bay and the Flashfreeze/Dispel in hand will keep their top decking power to a minimum. It is still hard to handle if they get a dream 7 to start the game, but I feel like I've had some decent success at stalling them out to stabilize. I hate running Dragon's Claw in the side because it is just so limited in its use whereas I could see running Flashfreeze, Dispel, and Spellskite against several other match ups. It is a matter of taste but I like to keep my options is flexible as possible in the side.
I like some of those changes. I've been playing around with ideas of having at least 1 MD copy of Logic Knot to help the counter spell suite a little bit. I've been torn lately on cutting out my 3 MD discard spells to make room for some more consistent counters and creature removal (bumping up my numbers on Terminate, Spell Snare, and a Logic Knot). The only problem with it is that I feel that discard would then have to take a large amount of side board space to make up for it. Jace, Architect of Thought really has been a force for me in some games and does a lot of heavy lifting. If you cut the Mystical Teachings out, there isn't a lot of reason to have a main deck Consume the Meek in my opinion when you could just slide another Damnation in its place. I feel like Grave Titan is a little clunky and if you just wanted a big body to put a clock on them, I'd say that Thundermaw Hellkite does that job better with haste plus it addresses your Lingering Souls issue. I have to say I feel myself pushing my main deck heavily to handle aggro and creature based strategies as they seem to have the strongest showings in Modern right now which is why I haven't mained a Keranos yet, but I love him in the side for control match ups (such as the mono blue tron match up I was struggling with).
Blue:
Anticipate: Another option for our card draw at the 2CMC slot. I've said before that I don't like running vanilla draw spells with Tasigur, but I have to say I always prefer the type that are instant speed and dig further for us, so this is more my style than Think Twice or Serum Visions.
Encase in Ice: Too cute, too specific, not as efficient as other options. Having flash does make it at least more playable than most of the types of cards I see like this.
Living Lore: Cute card again with a very interesting ability. However not worth the cost or space. As funny as it would be to have a walking Cruel on the board, it'll never go off.
Mirror Mockery: This one is the most interesting of the blue choices, but once again in most cases just not as efficient as straight removal.
Silumgar Sorcerer: I wish they made the exploit cards good. Such a waste.
Black:
Sidisi, Undead Vizier: Neat having a Tutor on a stick, but meh.
Ultimate Price: More instant speed creature kill at 2CMC. Just options.
Virulent Plague: If you don't like/have Illness in the Ranks.
Red:
Rending Volley: Like Ultimate Price, it just gives us more options.
Roast: See Rending Volley and Ultimate Price.
Thunderbreak Regent: I think it is worth a look as at least a decent middle of the road Red creature for pressure. If only it had haste.
Multi-color:
Dragonlord Kolaghan: Nice body, nice flying and haste. Fun ability. It competes with a lot of those "maybe" finishers at our 5-6 CMC slot.
Dragonlord Silumgar: Not as nice body, but having a Sower of Temptation out of bolt range is interesting at least (plus it grabs Karn)
Kolaghan's Command: Maybe SB quality for at least Affinity decks. Pretty low impact.
So all in all, not great. I might end up picking up a few if I need to add a few dollars to an order for free shipping, otherwise I'm in no rush for any of these.
As far as the Mono Blue Tron match up, man that deck is brutal for other control decks to face off against. That deck wants nothing more than to sit around and build advantage. Spell Burst is insane against us once they have tron online and we have to always be wary of Sundering Titan and Mindslaver. A lot of my main deck spells are fairly weak in that match up such as Spell Snare, Mana Leak, and Engineered Explosives. Besides some land destruction and switching around to some hard counters from the SB, I think it is a fairly tough match up to win against right now. Let me know your experiences against it.
That might work, but I've had games where I've run a Cruel Ultimatum out on turn 7 or 8 and not had a target in my graveyard so you might be out of luck on a few draws.
Sounds like another productive night of testing. The Affinity match up is always tough. Shatterstorm could be great, but it is a little slow. I definitely lean more towards Shattering Spree, Hurkyll's Recall, etc.
Tron is a match up I haven't had a lot of practice against (besides the Mono-U version). I can only imagine how tough it can be to stall some of their creatures out, but this is something I am afraid my sideboard is pretty weak against.
Overall I'd say that is a good night against some high quality decks. I'm glad to hear the God's have been doing some work for you. I've always had doubts about Mogis. It seems like the match ups I'd want his sacrifice ability on they'd just eat the 2 damage a few turns and stomp me down. At the same time, I see you run a lot more creature removal than I do so it might not be so bad of a problem.
@Trextik : I feel it is pretty hard to pull off a Cruel Ultimatum as a singleton without some help to dig for it. I find most of my Cruel's lately have been coming off of Jace, Architect of Thought using his -8 or from Tasigur flipping it into my hand. You have your Telling Times to help out but I think you might just have to take a cut on something else to make room for a second one if you want it to be more reliable. Maybe trim a Terminate or Shadow of Doubt ?
That brings up a lot of interesting ideas. Firstly, I love the Tasigur as a 2 of just because of how well he works as a creature for a control shell. Not only is he a clock on the game (or a blocker if need be) but his ability is extremely potent. I've done a lot of tooling with my deck to play nice with his activations and I have seen some good results. I removed the draw spells I was running (Telling Time/Think Twice/Serum Visions) and made sure I was running cantrips for my digging needs (Remand/Electrolyze). This way whatever I throw into my graveyard has value if I activate Tasigur. I found my opponents would gladly just throw me back my Telling Time or Serum Visions if any of them were left stranded in the graveyard. However now the only options for them to pick are spells that can have an impact besides card draw. I've been running with a theme that is trying to tie all the cards in the deck together a little better. Which brings me to Teachings.
I've never run the Teachings deck so that is why I asked for your opinion on it. I've just never been comfortable trying to force the deck to play nice with that card, however it appears you guys have been seeing some good results so who knows! I just know I enjoy running Damnation, Cruel Ultimatum, Batterskull, Jace, Architect of Thought, etc and those cards don't play well with Teachings. The ability to fetch anything out of your deck is always strong, but I'm just not sure it is what we need when it doesn't interact with a lot of our more powerful spells. We'll just have to keep testing to find out!
How has your testing with Jace gone? I've been running 2 just to try and get him into the games more often to see how I like him. Granted I've only practiced against a lot of the aggro decks so far, but it feels like he has a strong case for being at least a singleton in the deck, but I'm not sold on 2 yet.
Finally, it sounds like you and ppkitty have at least some good experiences running Grave Titan so that is something I might have to try in the place of some of the late game cards. I'll add it to the list with Keranos, God of Storms and Thundermaw Hellkite as possible SB tech.
Sounds like overall it was a good night
Second, how has the Teachings worked for you? I just always felt that the mana cost for the Teachings was too high to get a lot of flexibility out of it. It felt like most of the time you could only reliably get a cheap removal spell such as a Terminate or Slaughter Pact or something like Spell Snare. Most of our end game cards can't be fetched with it (Planeswalkers, Batterskull, Cruel, Tasigur) so I thought it might just be better to use that slot for something else.
Lastly, what do you usually bring the Grave Titan in for, and what do you cut to make room for it? I was always interested in this tech but never looked too much into it before.
I definitely feel that Tasigur is strongest as a 2-of. You don't want to flood with him because he is legendary. I love Telling Time a lot as a draw spell and I used to main 3 of them as well until very recently. From my experience so far, I find that Tasigur's ability is extremely important with him on the field and that made me take a hard look at the draw spells. If you are milling with Tasigur you want your graveyard to be filled with nothing but threats, and using his delve and cards like Murderous Cut go a long way in sculpting your graveyard for him. However I found that too many times I'd have a single copy of Telling Time/Serum Visions/Shadow of Doubt and my opponent would just gladly give that back to me instead of the other cards that have more immediate impact.
As far as Keranos goes, I haven't gotten my copies yet to play around with him in the main but if you are looking for other late game engines Jace, Architect of Thought has really been impressing me more and more so you might want to consider running him just to see how he feels for your style. Batterskull is also powerful as an evasive end game option if you want to go that route. Even Thundermaw Hellkite is sitting nicely with all the Lingering Souls decks running around.
As a last note, your English is great!
Yeah, like I said the side board is pretty place holder-y right now. I have Shattering Spree and Shatterstorm to try out, but I haven't even touched the Affinity match up yet so once I get to practicing that I'll rotate some of those cards around.
The Engineered Explosives has been helpful main board but I'm still not 100% on it. I will play around with it for another week and let you know how it goes. I ran it against Death & Taxes, Burn, and Stompy to try out some of the aggro matches and it performed fairly well there. Once they know you have it, it usually only gets to go 1-for-1 but just the idea that they have to play it a little more cautiously is a win against decks like those anyway.
3 Creeping Tar Pit
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Island
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Steam Vents
2 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Sulfur Falls
Creatures
4 Snapcaster Mage
2 Vendilion Clique
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Terminate
2 Electrolyze
2 Damnation
2 Cryptic Command
2 Mana Leak
2 Spell Snare
3 Remand
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Batterskull
1 Cruel Ultimatum
1 Keranos, God of Storms
2 Thoughtseize
2 Flashfreeze
2 Deathmark
3 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Spellskite
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Sowing Salt
My deck is in a state of flux right now as I've just recently begun testing some of the cards I put in the list (Jace AoT, Clique, Tasigur, Explosives). The sideboard is more or less just a place holder for now until I am done playing around with the main board. Here are my thoughts so far and ideas I have for changing.
Jace, Architect of Thought: I've only run him out in a few matches so far, but he seems to do quite a bit of work when he is out. I have two in currently just to try and run him out more often and I am afraid of him clogging some starting hands, but so far my impressions are he might warrant 1 or 2 spots. Any other thoughts are appreciated on this.
Vendilion Clique: I wasn't sure if I would be comfortable running these with the Tasigurs as I didn't want to have that many creatures in the main board. A handful of matches have shown me it is definitely worth running as a 2-of given the space. I was torn on discard spells (more on that later) but the Clique has some nice disruption and presents a strong clock/blocker.
Tasigur, the Golden Fang: Wow this guy is a champ. After a handful of games I could feel his immediate impact. His body hitting the board presents a huge challenge for the opponents and a few ticks of his ability can generate some huge advantage. He is 100% a 2 slot card. No more, no less.
Engineered Explosives: I saw this in a few recent lists running main board (I used to run 2 or 3 in the side) and I thought I'd give it a shot. I've had some pretty strong results with it. Being able to sweep off artifacts and enchantments is a huge deal for this deck. The threat it puts on tokens is also great. I'm feeling this was a great addition as well.
Here are my thoughts on a few of the other cards I'm not 100% on in the list.
Inquisition of Kozilek: I used to run 4-5 discard spells as a mix between Inquisition and Thoughtseize but I found the life lost from using Thoughtseize in a lot of match ups was too much mixed with the fetches and shocks. I switched to 3 Inquisitions only main board as it can still get a ton of value in almost all match ups and if nothing gives me a view of their hand. I have seen quite a few lists have cut discard from the main completely and I'm tempted to try it, but for now it stays.
Mana Leak: This stands for the counterspell's in general. I used to run 3 Mana Leak, 3 Spell Snare, and the 3 Remands. I cut a few slots down to make room for some of the current changes and I'm not sold 100% on the balance or card count. If Jace or something else was cut these might be the first numbers to change around but only time can tell.
Murderous Cut: I don't run any because my copies are in the mail now, but I plan on fitting 1 copy in the main board as cheap removal plus it helps get more value out of Tasigur's ability in the late game.
Let me know what you think. I've got some more testing to do today and next weekend before I rotate some cards and try a few other things out.