Also, my friends, it pays to be wary of people who want to sell you things. Call me crazy, but posting weird speculative lists is our job. CFB posts these lists not because they perform well in testing, but because they want you to buy the cards from them.
the reduction in fulminator mage has me confused.
are we really cutting down on this staple for increased creature count and speed?
That seems to be the gist of his argument. He wants to "speed up the goldfish by a significant amount" because he believes Living End is "going to do the same thing every. Single. Game" so it doesn't need interactive cards like Fulminator Mage.
I think most people here would agree that Living End has a lot more play than most decks and that the lines are not as simple as some believe. Obviously Fulminator Mage is the business.
One thing I tested out the past few weeks is Kari zerv expertise... You should run 1 for my opinion
It's a good card to play a living end in hand. With so many cyclers the chance you draw a living end will be greater.
It's a game changer/finisher. You can just play it to take an opponent monster and not cast libing end if you got it... You take the biggest creature or the one with an evasion.... Or you just take their only defenses...
It's like our cascade spell, we can just cast those for the primary effect.
Kari Zev's Expertise is the truth for the reasons you say, friend. This is the only recent printing that is unambiguously good for the deck.
I know this is going to be a weird question, but is it possible to be too bad to play Dredge?
I've been playing Magic for about a year (first Standard, then Merfolk and Living End). I play Living End (played Merfolk before) but the problem is I punt a lot. I get tired and miss triggers, rush through, etc. I want to buy into Dredge, but I know that the deck has more triggered abilities than almost any other Modern deck, so I'm wondering if I'm just too bad to play.
If anyone has any tips on how they manage all the triggers, that would be great.
You are not too bad to play Dredge, you are just new to the game and have underdeveloped habits. If anything, having to keep track of more triggers in a deck like Dredge will probably train you to be better about triggers with decks where it matters less.
I am also picking up Dredge (in paper, have it online) and expect to be bad with it for a little while. However, this is my starting point:
(1) Rearrange your graveyard to make sure you remember your important triggers. This is perfectly fine in Modern, as opposed to Legacy where you have to keep your graveyard ordered.
(2) Fan your graveyard out so you can see if you have cards that will trigger when x happens/see what dredgers you have in the bin. Check the graveyard any time you have something that might trigger a creature (like a land drop.)
(3) Watch streams of Dredge so you see what triggers when and why.
(4) Play Dredge online using MTGO or Xmage so you see what triggers when and why.
(5) Read the "Mis. Good tips to know" section in this primer. There seems to be a lot of good advice related to this question there. For instance in reference to Prized Amalgam's delayed trigger: "[announce the trigger and] keep [Prized Amalgam] on the side of the grave, or put a dice on it."
This is the best primer I have ever read on mtgsalvation. Nice work Lantern et al.
You should make a book version of the primer that looks like the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies. I would pay you for something like that. Extra if it's bound in human flesh and inked in human blood.
I was working on that as a deck box actually.
Incredible. Is this something I can find at my local S-Mart? I will have to buy one.
This is the best primer I have ever read on mtgsalvation. Nice work Lantern et al.
You should make a book version of the primer that looks like the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies. I would pay you for something like that. Extra if it's bound in human flesh and inked in human blood.
Ok but what will you cut to add the horror and/or the ceradon?
Others have said recently that you should cut Monstrous Carabid for Ceradon. This seems reasonable.
I don't know if this has been discussed, but Horror of the Broken Lands vs. Kessig Wolf Run is an interesting topic. I am curious at what point it's better to hold cyclers for Horror of the Broken Lands triggers as opposed to using your mana to do the same thing + trample. Sure, it's more expensive, but you get a little more flexibility and evasion with Kessig Wolf Run.
I think we can keep the moon plan but mainly because I prefer to play LE more control-ly. I prefer Magus over Moon because I like the recurrence of the card and how it synergises with the deck's aims (a Magus in the gy and one on board acts as a soft-lock, I find). The archfiend seems more like a sideboard tech for a higher cycling cost.
Magus of the Moon is bad in Living End. There are times where you will be forced to remove the Blood Moon effect by casting Living End without (and I would argue usually without) a Magus of the Moon in the bin. And what you describe is a terrible soft lock that is extremely easy to deal with by most decks.
Our marquee card does not kill Blood Moon. Odds are good that your opponent won't have a way to deal with it game 1 and possibly even post-board. Where your "soft lock" requires two cards and a high number of gyrations to complete, Blood Moon does the same thing with just one card. It is very clearly better.
It is 100% worth it to keep it. Blood Moon is impactful in a way that the new cyclers are not in that the card gives us another axis on which to fight that is separate, but supportive, of our main plan. The new cyclers are potentially gas where we are already gassy.
Cut some number of the old cyclers for some number of the new cyclers if you feel so inclined. It should be fairly easy to adjust the numbers of each to suit you.
I know, I just think that the people in favor of banning all fast mana don't understand that there are differences between the various mana cards. Mox opal and SSG are fine and even healthy for the format i'd argue, seething song is not.
We are on the same page. My quote in your post is in response to my own somewhat rhetorical question from earlier.
Why would it get a ban? Just perusing modernnexus and mtggoldfish, the first deck on the tier list that actually plays SSG is ad naus. The deck itself is a solid tier 2 representing about 2% of the overall metagame, i'd be hardpress to call for a ban based on this.
This was my thought exactly. There's just nothing in the meta that warrants attention to SSG.
I think the talk, then, is mostly centered around the class of effects (fast mana) rather than SSG itself, i.e. WotC has banned other fast mana effects therefore they will ban SSG. But then it seems that they would be equally likely to ban any card with Phyrexian mana or any card with the Dredge mechanic as they would SSG. I just don't see it happening absent an over-performing deck that abuses it.
There is a lot of talk right now of SSG getting a ban. Some people say it's an essential four-of in our deck (I only run 3x) but what do you guys think if it gets banned?
I remain highly skeptical of a ban. I am trying to see what deck Simian Spirit Guide makes problematic at present and am whiffing. Perhaps you or someone could enlighten me as to the nature of this talk?
Certainly losing Simian Spirit Guide makes the few match ups where we want an early combo much worse. You also can't do shenanigans trying to bait your opponent into thinking you don't have the third mana source for a Violent Outburst and over committing or busting out a tricksy Ricochet Trap.
Thanks all, I find it interesting that the deck was doing well a couple of weeks ago online, but is now absent from the 5-0 listings...what happened?
I think what you are remarking on is the result of a general lack of people playing the deck. Standard has been "solved" in most people's minds and basically everyone and their mother is playing one of two decks, which inflates those results and depresses our own. Those archetypes have far more chances to 5-0 a tournament while we have just a few.
A couple of thoughts off the cuff:
This is not necessarily indicative of a flaw in our deck or a comment on its playability in this format. The apparent superiority of the two best decks is, again, inflated by the sheer number of people playing them. This reinforces two tendencies common to Magic players: (1) thinking that the combined brain power of Magic players on the internet is tantamount to an unlimited capacity for calculation that can definitively solve a format and design a clear "best" deck; and, (2) thinking that to be the best, you must play the "best" deck in a format if such a deck is known. Arguably what we see when we have such wonky meta games is people with tendency #2 (e.g. most competitive Magic players) making a decision to play a particular deck based on a limited pool of results and discounting alternatives because of tendency #1.
As to #1, it is clear the majority of Magic players on the internet receive information rather than produce it. I, for instance, read Channel Fireball and review deck techs to learn about new decks. I also pay attention to PT and other tournament coverage to see what decks make it to the top tables. If there is something competitive that I can afford, I will build that deck and play it in paper and online. There's seldom any legitimate play testing that goes into this decision because I, like everyone else, am a net decker with no good original thoughts regarding Magic whatsoever (plenty of bad ones though.) I certainly didn't arrive at the conclusion that Deck X was the best deck because of my own scientific research, but rather because it spiked a tournament and then I, like thousands of others, read the article "Here's Why CFB Ice Played Deck X, the Best Deck in the Format, Which Is So Because PVDDR Says So and It Won This Tournament So, Duh." So, we tend to receive our information from two to three online outlets run by high profile professional teams rather than an unlimited render farm. What happens then is a bunch of little menloes go out and buy the deck en masse and start playing in online tournaments and round about town and, lo and behold, the disproportionate number of people entering a tournament with Deck X leads to a disproportionate number of Deck X players day twoing which leads to a disproportionate number of Deck X players Top 8ing (or Deck X players 5-0ing as the case may be.)
It is less a render farm, which I think requires multitudes of people testing infinite combinations of cards (which is impossible), than a feedback loop. Is there a better deck? Is there a deck that beats Deck X? I do not know, and the cost of finding out is obviously much higher than the cost of just going with the known quantity since I just want to win. So tendency #2 compels me to play Deck X.
I think our deck is great. It does crazy and fun things (in standard!) and is inherently powerful. The fact that it can still put up results in spite of the emergence of two "best" decks is a testament to that. It is very likely underplayed.
I'm thinking for my main building of going all in LD too. What do you think abSBB 1-2 copies Boom // Bust main or sbb starting tomorrow with the split change?
It is hard to say without knowing what your list and meta looks like. I love the LD element of Living End, but you may be straying into the territory of overkill. Avalanche Riders is great because it destroys a land, attacks the turn it comes down, and then conveniently goes into the graveyard of its own accord and thereby supports the main plan while boosting our secondary plan. While Blood Moon does not contribute to the main plan, it is definitely powerful enough that it can bump a land and a flex spot in the main without me getting squeamish. Anything beyond that and it gets significantly more painful to make cuts.
As a sideboard card, sure, it seems ok, but what match ups are you conceding percentage points against to accommodate more land destruction? As a rule, Living End feels disadvantaged against control (somewhat), burn, faster combo, and decks that can run multiple pieces of hate and my sideboard, along with most sideboards, is specifically built against those decks. The generic list feels pretty good against decks where LD matters since it runs 7 pieces of LD main (x4 Fulminator Mage and x3 Beast Within) and the Brisbane list takes it to the next level without sacrificing too much of our main game plan (-1 Beast Within and -1 land is a very low cost.) I think you would necessarily be cutting out cards that fight our worst match ups for cards that are good against decks we're already good against.
Also, my friends, it pays to be wary of people who want to sell you things. Call me crazy, but posting weird speculative lists is our job. CFB posts these lists not because they perform well in testing, but because they want you to buy the cards from them.
That seems to be the gist of his argument. He wants to "speed up the goldfish by a significant amount" because he believes Living End is "going to do the same thing every. Single. Game" so it doesn't need interactive cards like Fulminator Mage.
I think most people here would agree that Living End has a lot more play than most decks and that the lines are not as simple as some believe. Obviously Fulminator Mage is the business.
Kari Zev's Expertise is the truth for the reasons you say, friend. This is the only recent printing that is unambiguously good for the deck.
You are not too bad to play Dredge, you are just new to the game and have underdeveloped habits. If anything, having to keep track of more triggers in a deck like Dredge will probably train you to be better about triggers with decks where it matters less.
I am also picking up Dredge (in paper, have it online) and expect to be bad with it for a little while. However, this is my starting point:
(1) Rearrange your graveyard to make sure you remember your important triggers. This is perfectly fine in Modern, as opposed to Legacy where you have to keep your graveyard ordered.
(2) Fan your graveyard out so you can see if you have cards that will trigger when x happens/see what dredgers you have in the bin. Check the graveyard any time you have something that might trigger a creature (like a land drop.)
(3) Watch streams of Dredge so you see what triggers when and why.
(4) Play Dredge online using MTGO or Xmage so you see what triggers when and why.
(5) Read the "Mis. Good tips to know" section in this primer. There seems to be a lot of good advice related to this question there. For instance in reference to Prized Amalgam's delayed trigger: "[announce the trigger and] keep [Prized Amalgam] on the side of the grave, or put a dice on it."
Incredible. Is this something I can find at my local S-Mart? I will have to buy one.
You should make a book version of the primer that looks like the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis from the Evil Dead/Army of Darkness movies. I would pay you for something like that. Extra if it's bound in human flesh and inked in human blood.
Others have said recently that you should cut Monstrous Carabid for Ceradon. This seems reasonable.
I don't know if this has been discussed, but Horror of the Broken Lands vs. Kessig Wolf Run is an interesting topic. I am curious at what point it's better to hold cyclers for Horror of the Broken Lands triggers as opposed to using your mana to do the same thing + trample. Sure, it's more expensive, but you get a little more flexibility and evasion with Kessig Wolf Run.
Magus of the Moon is bad in Living End. There are times where you will be forced to remove the Blood Moon effect by casting Living End without (and I would argue usually without) a Magus of the Moon in the bin. And what you describe is a terrible soft lock that is extremely easy to deal with by most decks.
Our marquee card does not kill Blood Moon. Odds are good that your opponent won't have a way to deal with it game 1 and possibly even post-board. Where your "soft lock" requires two cards and a high number of gyrations to complete, Blood Moon does the same thing with just one card. It is very clearly better.
Edited for clarity/consistency.
It is 100% worth it to keep it. Blood Moon is impactful in a way that the new cyclers are not in that the card gives us another axis on which to fight that is separate, but supportive, of our main plan. The new cyclers are potentially gas where we are already gassy.
Cut some number of the old cyclers for some number of the new cyclers if you feel so inclined. It should be fairly easy to adjust the numbers of each to suit you.
FWIW, I am on the wrong side of variance lately too.
We are on the same page. My quote in your post is in response to my own somewhat rhetorical question from earlier.
This was my thought exactly. There's just nothing in the meta that warrants attention to SSG.
I think the talk, then, is mostly centered around the class of effects (fast mana) rather than SSG itself, i.e. WotC has banned other fast mana effects therefore they will ban SSG. But then it seems that they would be equally likely to ban any card with Phyrexian mana or any card with the Dredge mechanic as they would SSG. I just don't see it happening absent an over-performing deck that abuses it.
I remain highly skeptical of a ban. I am trying to see what deck Simian Spirit Guide makes problematic at present and am whiffing. Perhaps you or someone could enlighten me as to the nature of this talk?
Certainly losing Simian Spirit Guide makes the few match ups where we want an early combo much worse. You also can't do shenanigans trying to bait your opponent into thinking you don't have the third mana source for a Violent Outburst and over committing or busting out a tricksy Ricochet Trap.
I think what you are remarking on is the result of a general lack of people playing the deck. Standard has been "solved" in most people's minds and basically everyone and their mother is playing one of two decks, which inflates those results and depresses our own. Those archetypes have far more chances to 5-0 a tournament while we have just a few.
A couple of thoughts off the cuff:
This is not necessarily indicative of a flaw in our deck or a comment on its playability in this format. The apparent superiority of the two best decks is, again, inflated by the sheer number of people playing them. This reinforces two tendencies common to Magic players: (1) thinking that the combined brain power of Magic players on the internet is tantamount to an unlimited capacity for calculation that can definitively solve a format and design a clear "best" deck; and, (2) thinking that to be the best, you must play the "best" deck in a format if such a deck is known. Arguably what we see when we have such wonky meta games is people with tendency #2 (e.g. most competitive Magic players) making a decision to play a particular deck based on a limited pool of results and discounting alternatives because of tendency #1.
As to #1, it is clear the majority of Magic players on the internet receive information rather than produce it. I, for instance, read Channel Fireball and review deck techs to learn about new decks. I also pay attention to PT and other tournament coverage to see what decks make it to the top tables. If there is something competitive that I can afford, I will build that deck and play it in paper and online. There's seldom any legitimate play testing that goes into this decision because I, like everyone else, am a net decker with no good original thoughts regarding Magic whatsoever (plenty of bad ones though.) I certainly didn't arrive at the conclusion that Deck X was the best deck because of my own scientific research, but rather because it spiked a tournament and then I, like thousands of others, read the article "Here's Why CFB Ice Played Deck X, the Best Deck in the Format, Which Is So Because PVDDR Says So and It Won This Tournament So, Duh." So, we tend to receive our information from two to three online outlets run by high profile professional teams rather than an unlimited render farm. What happens then is a bunch of little menloes go out and buy the deck en masse and start playing in online tournaments and round about town and, lo and behold, the disproportionate number of people entering a tournament with Deck X leads to a disproportionate number of Deck X players day twoing which leads to a disproportionate number of Deck X players Top 8ing (or Deck X players 5-0ing as the case may be.)
It is less a render farm, which I think requires multitudes of people testing infinite combinations of cards (which is impossible), than a feedback loop. Is there a better deck? Is there a deck that beats Deck X? I do not know, and the cost of finding out is obviously much higher than the cost of just going with the known quantity since I just want to win. So tendency #2 compels me to play Deck X.
I think our deck is great. It does crazy and fun things (in standard!) and is inherently powerful. The fact that it can still put up results in spite of the emergence of two "best" decks is a testament to that. It is very likely underplayed.
It is hard to say without knowing what your list and meta looks like. I love the LD element of Living End, but you may be straying into the territory of overkill. Avalanche Riders is great because it destroys a land, attacks the turn it comes down, and then conveniently goes into the graveyard of its own accord and thereby supports the main plan while boosting our secondary plan. While Blood Moon does not contribute to the main plan, it is definitely powerful enough that it can bump a land and a flex spot in the main without me getting squeamish. Anything beyond that and it gets significantly more painful to make cuts.
As a sideboard card, sure, it seems ok, but what match ups are you conceding percentage points against to accommodate more land destruction? As a rule, Living End feels disadvantaged against control (somewhat), burn, faster combo, and decks that can run multiple pieces of hate and my sideboard, along with most sideboards, is specifically built against those decks. The generic list feels pretty good against decks where LD matters since it runs 7 pieces of LD main (x4 Fulminator Mage and x3 Beast Within) and the Brisbane list takes it to the next level without sacrificing too much of our main game plan (-1 Beast Within and -1 land is a very low cost.) I think you would necessarily be cutting out cards that fight our worst match ups for cards that are good against decks we're already good against.