The people who created the site 15 years ago and has been running it since will presumably clone it and relaunch it with a new name. Should be simple enough to copy the primer to the new Bogles thread there. Having a discord server doesn't hurt of course, and could be useful for those doing more active testing. But in general, spreading out the information currently condensed on the modern forums here out to 30+ different discord servers seems a bit problematic.
Not fun to see in your opening hand, but maybe it has a place in the SB?
We can't afford to play any colorless lands so this would have to go in a spell slot and it doesn't really seem worth it. We're quite limited on mana so very difficult to return something and play it in the same turn even. Just way too slow and don't see many cases where this would win you a game where a powerful aura like Unflinching Courage wouldn't do better.
Also new removal spell:
Could potentially be interesting if you want more removal spells than 4 Path to Exile. Only working if you fetch a basic land is a bit awkward though, so who knows. Also not great against Ghost Quarter or other basic land destruction.
Force of Vigor is interesting as a replacement for Nature's Claim/Seal of Primordium in the sideboard. Better against Blood Moon and Chalice of the Void and the ability to destroy two things is also very useful against artifact decks. Needing to pitch en extra green card is a bit problematic though, as we rarely have many cards to spare.
The second interesting card so far is Ranger-Captain of Eos. Disrupts decks like Storm/Ad Nauseam, stops cards like Terminus and also provides some bonus value by fetching another Bogle. Still, against the combo decks there are stronger hosers, against control decks it's still vulnerable to counters and against grindy midrange decks the body it provides doesn't help us much. So overall probably not that interesting.
What about this War of the Spark Bond of Flourishing green cantrip? Almost every card in Bogles (including sideboard) is a permanent card: lands, creatures, enchantments and artifacts. This means that we cast it for 1G, can look at the 3 on top, put 1 into hand and gain 3 life. This can accelerate our game a lot.. even granting fast access to Daybreak Coronet or our sideboard cards during games 2 and 3!
The "On bottom in any order" part is useful for Bogles too.. once some important cards (like Dryad Arbor) aren't useful neither in hand nor in the graveyard. If the 2 cards were put in the graveyard, these cards would be easy targets to Surgical Extraction. For a deck like Bogles, it's much much better that the other 2 cards are going to the bottom of the library and not to the graveyard.
What do you think, guys?
Bogles can't really mess around like this spending mana on trying to find things for the future instead of developing our board. We're already hard pressed to keep up with the combo decks and to get under the control decks's countermagic. You want to be casting a creature on turn 1, not looking for it on turn 2 and playing it on turn 3. You want to be playing two 1cc auras on turn 2, not giving up an entire turn trying to find something to play. And it goes without saying that it's not really useful to find land cards with this, so even if we wanted this sort of effect Commune with the Gods would be a lot better. In general none of these cards will be better than just playing Unflinching Courage, as it's pretty equal in power to a 4 mana Daybreak Coronet and significantly better than any 1-mana aura that you're paying 3 for.
I agree that Path to Exile is essential since it's by far the best card against Izzet Phoenix and useful against almost anything. It's very needed against any sort of Affinity deck and it's good against random creature aggro and Burn. Even in matchups where it's weak like GBx, Dredge and Tron, it's still far from useless. I would strongly recommend running 4 in the main deck.
Leyline maindeck doesn't seem great right now, with GBx lists not being very popular. In my opinion maindeck Leylines should only be considered in very specific metas that are heavy on GBx, GDS and Burn.
Regarding sideboard cards, Stony Silence is always a great choice since it's good both against Affinity/Hardened Scales but also Whir Prison/Lantern/Tron and various rogue artifact based decks. Suppression Field doesn't seem very useful, where exactly would you want it and aren't there stronger cards for those matchups? Worship is a terrible card in Bogles as we cannot reliably get to 4 mana and every deck has ways around it anyway, especially post sideboard. Against the few decks where a hexproof creature+Worship means game over, they usually couldn't deal with just a Daybreak Coronet anyway.
It's kind of boring but currently I don't see much reason to deviate from the standard:
4 Leylines
2-3 Gaddock Teeg
2-3 Rest in Peace
2-3 Stony Silence
2-3 Disenchant effects
0-3 personal choice
Dromoka's Command or Dismember can be useful as removal spell 5-6. Damping Sphere can be useful against Tron and Storm, but I don't think it's good against Izzet Phoenix so doubtful if it has a place in the sideboard. In general, it's better to have strong, specific cards over all-round mediocre cards. The mediocre cards tend to not upgrade the deck much since taking out auras hurts so much.
I never understood having cards like Deglamer and Unravel in the sideboard. What is it mainly going after. I understand that you could target your own things but can't see 4 sideboard slots just for that. Can anyone give reasoning for it?
It's normal to have 2-4 artifact/enchantment removal in the sideboard as they're useful against a multitude of decks. Affinity, Tron, Infect, Lantern, Whir Prison, and various decks where you can expect some problematic cards after sideboard (like Blood Moon or Worship).
The typical choices for this slot includes Nature's Claim, Natural State and Seal of Priomordium, all of which comes with advantages and disadvantages. The choice of Deglamer and Unravel is specifically targeted against the Whir Prison deck as neither Chalice of the Void nor Welding Jar can stop it. Whether this is correct when Whir Prison is just a small percentage of the meta is very doubtful, but there's little doubt that's his reason.
Whether or not you want Rest in Peace against Izzet Phoenix depends a lot on how many Snapcaster Mage, Pteramander and Pyromancer Ascension they run. They're not worth bringing in solely because of Phoenix, but I often feel like it's still worth it since we can spare some slots and we don't really have much else to bring in.
Regarding Tron, it can be a bit tough but it's not so awful. We do have a fast clock and they won't have a turn 4 Ugin all that often while a turn 3 Karn/Wurmcoil can often be beaten. Post sideboard we have a lot of strong cards that can lock them down quite well. More problematic than you would expect at first glance is Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger as it gets around all of our hate and exiles it. It's not fast but our sideboard cards often slow us down too, so they will have time for it often.
Awesome! Bogles is often a great meta deck. We tend to be strong when sideboards are turned too heavily to fight one thing. The lack of engineered explosives in the boards is really helping us, I think.
When Izzet Phoenix (aka a creature deck) is the deck to beat, bogles will certainly shine
Izzet Phoeniz isn't really a creature deck in this regard. Normally the reason we beat creature decks is that they're completely blank to a resolved Daybreak Coronet and even without it they can't win the combat step against our huge first strikers. Izzet Phoenix has Thing in the Ice, which is pretty much a trump card against us that wins every time it gets to flip. With all their cantrips and filtering, it's not uncommon at all for them to find more Thing in the Ice than we find Path to Exile.
I played the matchup 6 times at GP Bilbao and only managed a 2-4 result. That was probably lower than we should expect, but the matchup is reasonably close. Even without Thing in the Ice they will win some matches just to us not drawing a Bogle, them having a quick start and racing us, or them drawing a powerful sideboard card like Explosives or Blood Moon that stops us dead.
Regarding Enlightened Tutor vs Open the Armory, it's simply that there aren't enough toolbox auras to fetch. Enlightened Tutor fetches cards like Rest in Peace, Stony Silence, Grafdigger's Cage and Spellskite, and importantly does so fast enough that you can still cast them on turn 2. Running 2-3 maindeck would also let you play interesting enchantments like Eidolon of Rhetoric in the sideboard. Even game 1 when you most likely want to fetch Coronet with it, it's much easier to fit into the curve to allow for a turn 3 Coronet compared to Open the Armory. I think Enlightened Tutor is very unlikely to be reprinted though.
The downsides of Enlightened Tutor would be that you're still paying a mana and a card for it, which probably isn't worth it just for the maindeck auras. This is also why Sterling Grove probably isn't worth it even with the shroud benefit. Both cards get significantly better post sideboard though. Argothian Enchantress would be interesting, hard to say if it would be worth it.
Speaking of cards that seemingly go against our game plan, what are your thoughts on Serra the Benevolent as a SB option? I still see Worship pop up in sideboards every now and then and it would appear Serra is a strictly better replacement. Her +1 is largely irrelevant even if we happen to have a Gryff's Boon on the field, but having the option to create a Worship emblem the turn after she's played is pretty enticing. In addition, the ability to play around edict effects could be much more valuable after we see everything we're getting from Horizons; I still find it unlikely that True-Name will be in the set, but in a scenario where it does get added to the Modern card-pool, some number of edicts would surely be added to the format as well.
If you cast Worship against a creature deck, that can just be GG right away. If you cast Serra the Benevolent against a creature deck, they just kill it and you have nothing. The two cards are not comparable at all and calling Serra a "strictly better Worship" is kind of weird to be honest. If Serra the Benevolent sees any play at all it will be in decks that are reasonably happy with a 4 mana 4/4 flyer. Bogles certainly isn't, and the bar for a 4-mana spell is EXTREMELY high for this deck. A 4 mana spell that said "You win the game" would probably be worth it, but it couldn't be much worse than that.
I'm playing Bogles a lot... but it seems so fragile in so many matches for me. Sometimes it seems to need more evasion... sometimes it seems to need more power... sometimes it seems to need more protection... sometimes it seems to need more consistency... sometimes it seems to need more interaction... and in the end there are not enough auras to fill all these blank spaces. Don't get me wrong, I love the deck, but it can be frustrating here and there.
1) What about Sigarda's Aid? I know Bogles doesn't really need instant speed, but I think this could really make the combat more aggressive once the opponent doesn't know what we are about to cast to make our creatures even more monstrous. Sigarda's Aid would even make Helm of the Gods viable.
2) Is there any powerful list of Bogles that plays Arcanum Wings combo? Aura Swap ability + some powerful but high CMC auras (Spectra Ward, Eldrazi Conscription, etc) seems tempting.
3) What about Umbra Mystic? It’s ability grants totem armor to all our auras! For 2W, It’s presence on the field is great.
The problem with most of the things you suggest, is that it completely ruins what little consistency the deck has. You talk about wanting more consistency but that would not be the effect of the cards you suggest.
To get back to the basics, most "fair" decks are generally trying to draw a good mixture of lands and spells. If you draw too many spells, you won't have lands to cast them. If you draw too few spells, your opponent can trade 1-for-1 and outvalue you. Bogles takes this to the next level by requiring three separate components to function. Lands, creatures and auras. If you draw too few of one of these components, it's hard to win, and the opponent can focus his answers on the type you are lacking.
Cards like Sigarda's Aid and Helm of the Gods don't fill any of these three roles. They introduce a 4th role, cards that are only good if you already drew the other 3 types. Playing cards like that over additional creatures and/or auras will make the deck more inconsistent and vulnerable to answers. It's much easier to starve the deck from Auras if you replaced a bunch of them with utility cards like this. This is the reason why cards like Spirit Link and Keen Sense have always been kind of questionable.
Regarding the Arcanum Wings combo, it's simply too inconsistent. Both Arcanum Wings and Eldrazi Conscription are almost dead if you don't draw both, we have no good way of finding them, and even if you do they're still easily answerable. Against any deck that can't answer the combo, playing Rancor+Daybreak Coronet is likely good enough too. 3 mana is by no means a certain thing with this deck, frequently we have to operate on two lands which doesn't work with the combo.
Regarding cards like Umbra Mystic and Nomad Mythmaker, they're way too easy to answer and do nothing when answered. A general rule in modern is that any creature that gains neither value nor tempo against a removal spell is unplayable. In Bogles cards like that are particularly terrible because they turn on the otherwise dead removal spells. Even for cards that do provide tempo or value, 3 mana is still almost always too much for this deck and 4 mana for things like Wrath of God is simply unthinkable.
There aren't really a lot of interesting auras that aren't already legal in modern. Briar Shield is kind of the only thing that seems useful. Enlightened Tutor could be useful to fetch sideboard cards but it seems very unlikely to be reprinted. Sterling Grove is a possibility that is reprintable but I'm unsure if it would be worth running.
We're probably gonna have to hope mostly for new cards rather than reprints. I do believe that they'll make sure almost every archetype gets at least one interesting card though, so we'll see what they come up with.
Hi guys, I just picked up GW bogles yesterday, however a budget version with no Horizon Canopies, 4 paths main and 4 leylines in the board. Other than that it's pretty standard. I would like some advise on sideboarding: How do you board against GDS and vs IOK/TS in general. Do you only bring in leyline on the draw (since on the play they can't snag a bogle) or what is the approach? Thx a lot
Against GDS you bring it in on the play too. Even if you can land a bogle on t1, protecting key auras like Ethereal Armor, Daybreak Coronet and Spirit Mantle and also Path to Exile is still important. Also, many decks running the black discard spells also run things like Liliana of the Veil that are even more important to stop, plus some random things like Lightning Bolt and Kolaghan's Command. If you are certain that they're not running Liliana and that they only have 5-6 discard spells rather than 8, you could consider cutting down to 2-3 Leylines on the play.
In general, It's all about how many discard spells they run, how much other random targeted stuff they have, and what your alternative is. It's hard to give a straight answer as it depend so much on the situation. Against decks running only 4 discard spells and nothing else, you either don't board it at all or just do 1-2 copies on the draw.
Hi everybody. I’m seeing Dromoka's Command played more, anyone playing this card like to explain why this card is so good and worth including in the main board?
On a similar note, it appears Open the Armory has gained some favorability again; a lot of those same lists that have D Command have OtA as a 2 of MB. OtA always looked so good on paper, but never really panned out in practice; aside from 1 of auras that one might want to tutor up depending on matchup (Spirit Link), OtA is almost always going to be used to fish for a Coronet. The problem with that is we need access to 3 white mana and 4 mana total in order to play both on the same turn. I think a case can be made for OtA in decks that play a lot of 1-of toolbox auras, but there's no benefit to be had by jamming it into a typical decklist IMO.
Mostly I think it just comes down to that the first 57 cards of the deck are a lot more important than the last 3. As long as you have the core of the deck the final few choices are only going to make a marginal difference and it's possible to win with worse variations of a deck. As this was a team event it's hard to know if he even won a lot. What we can see is that the the normal "5th removal spell", Dismember, was unavailable as one of his teammates was using it. In general I find Dromoka's Command fairly terrible as it's completely unreliable in the matchups where you need removal the most. You cannot guarantee that your creatures are larger, it doesn't exile and having to hold up 2 mana instead of 1 is also a huge downside. The flexibility of countering a bolt or killing an enchantment would only make it worth running in very specific metagames.
Open the Armory is awful in Bogles. The extra 2 mana to choose an enchantment from your deck make pretty much every choice terrible. If you want a slower powerful enchantment, which is pretty much what it is, you should be running Unflinching Courage instead. The best reasons to be running Open the Armory is probably the possibility of including Gelid Shackles and Wheel of Sun and Moon as fetch targets, but he's not even doing that so not sure why he's running it.
In the next game, he turn 4 plays Spoils of the Vault with Lab Man in play. My 6 card hand was not going to beat the following turn's Ad Nauseam + Angel's Grace anyway.
Also new removal spell:
Could potentially be interesting if you want more removal spells than 4 Path to Exile. Only working if you fetch a basic land is a bit awkward though, so who knows. Also not great against Ghost Quarter or other basic land destruction.
The second interesting card so far is Ranger-Captain of Eos. Disrupts decks like Storm/Ad Nauseam, stops cards like Terminus and also provides some bonus value by fetching another Bogle. Still, against the combo decks there are stronger hosers, against control decks it's still vulnerable to counters and against grindy midrange decks the body it provides doesn't help us much. So overall probably not that interesting.
Leyline maindeck doesn't seem great right now, with GBx lists not being very popular. In my opinion maindeck Leylines should only be considered in very specific metas that are heavy on GBx, GDS and Burn.
Regarding sideboard cards, Stony Silence is always a great choice since it's good both against Affinity/Hardened Scales but also Whir Prison/Lantern/Tron and various rogue artifact based decks. Suppression Field doesn't seem very useful, where exactly would you want it and aren't there stronger cards for those matchups? Worship is a terrible card in Bogles as we cannot reliably get to 4 mana and every deck has ways around it anyway, especially post sideboard. Against the few decks where a hexproof creature+Worship means game over, they usually couldn't deal with just a Daybreak Coronet anyway.
It's kind of boring but currently I don't see much reason to deviate from the standard:
4 Leylines
2-3 Gaddock Teeg
2-3 Rest in Peace
2-3 Stony Silence
2-3 Disenchant effects
0-3 personal choice
Dromoka's Command or Dismember can be useful as removal spell 5-6. Damping Sphere can be useful against Tron and Storm, but I don't think it's good against Izzet Phoenix so doubtful if it has a place in the sideboard. In general, it's better to have strong, specific cards over all-round mediocre cards. The mediocre cards tend to not upgrade the deck much since taking out auras hurts so much.
RIP Slippery Bogle 2012-2019.
The typical choices for this slot includes Nature's Claim, Natural State and Seal of Priomordium, all of which comes with advantages and disadvantages. The choice of Deglamer and Unravel is specifically targeted against the Whir Prison deck as neither Chalice of the Void nor Welding Jar can stop it. Whether this is correct when Whir Prison is just a small percentage of the meta is very doubtful, but there's little doubt that's his reason.
Whether or not you want Rest in Peace against Izzet Phoenix depends a lot on how many Snapcaster Mage, Pteramander and Pyromancer Ascension they run. They're not worth bringing in solely because of Phoenix, but I often feel like it's still worth it since we can spare some slots and we don't really have much else to bring in.
Regarding Tron, it can be a bit tough but it's not so awful. We do have a fast clock and they won't have a turn 4 Ugin all that often while a turn 3 Karn/Wurmcoil can often be beaten. Post sideboard we have a lot of strong cards that can lock them down quite well. More problematic than you would expect at first glance is Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger as it gets around all of our hate and exiles it. It's not fast but our sideboard cards often slow us down too, so they will have time for it often.
Izzet Phoeniz isn't really a creature deck in this regard. Normally the reason we beat creature decks is that they're completely blank to a resolved Daybreak Coronet and even without it they can't win the combat step against our huge first strikers. Izzet Phoenix has Thing in the Ice, which is pretty much a trump card against us that wins every time it gets to flip. With all their cantrips and filtering, it's not uncommon at all for them to find more Thing in the Ice than we find Path to Exile.
I played the matchup 6 times at GP Bilbao and only managed a 2-4 result. That was probably lower than we should expect, but the matchup is reasonably close. Even without Thing in the Ice they will win some matches just to us not drawing a Bogle, them having a quick start and racing us, or them drawing a powerful sideboard card like Explosives or Blood Moon that stops us dead.
The downsides of Enlightened Tutor would be that you're still paying a mana and a card for it, which probably isn't worth it just for the maindeck auras. This is also why Sterling Grove probably isn't worth it even with the shroud benefit. Both cards get significantly better post sideboard though. Argothian Enchantress would be interesting, hard to say if it would be worth it.
To get back to the basics, most "fair" decks are generally trying to draw a good mixture of lands and spells. If you draw too many spells, you won't have lands to cast them. If you draw too few spells, your opponent can trade 1-for-1 and outvalue you. Bogles takes this to the next level by requiring three separate components to function. Lands, creatures and auras. If you draw too few of one of these components, it's hard to win, and the opponent can focus his answers on the type you are lacking.
Cards like Sigarda's Aid and Helm of the Gods don't fill any of these three roles. They introduce a 4th role, cards that are only good if you already drew the other 3 types. Playing cards like that over additional creatures and/or auras will make the deck more inconsistent and vulnerable to answers. It's much easier to starve the deck from Auras if you replaced a bunch of them with utility cards like this. This is the reason why cards like Spirit Link and Keen Sense have always been kind of questionable.
Regarding the Arcanum Wings combo, it's simply too inconsistent. Both Arcanum Wings and Eldrazi Conscription are almost dead if you don't draw both, we have no good way of finding them, and even if you do they're still easily answerable. Against any deck that can't answer the combo, playing Rancor+Daybreak Coronet is likely good enough too. 3 mana is by no means a certain thing with this deck, frequently we have to operate on two lands which doesn't work with the combo.
Regarding cards like Umbra Mystic and Nomad Mythmaker, they're way too easy to answer and do nothing when answered. A general rule in modern is that any creature that gains neither value nor tempo against a removal spell is unplayable. In Bogles cards like that are particularly terrible because they turn on the otherwise dead removal spells. Even for cards that do provide tempo or value, 3 mana is still almost always too much for this deck and 4 mana for things like Wrath of God is simply unthinkable.
We're probably gonna have to hope mostly for new cards rather than reprints. I do believe that they'll make sure almost every archetype gets at least one interesting card though, so we'll see what they come up with.
Against GDS you bring it in on the play too. Even if you can land a bogle on t1, protecting key auras like Ethereal Armor, Daybreak Coronet and Spirit Mantle and also Path to Exile is still important. Also, many decks running the black discard spells also run things like Liliana of the Veil that are even more important to stop, plus some random things like Lightning Bolt and Kolaghan's Command. If you are certain that they're not running Liliana and that they only have 5-6 discard spells rather than 8, you could consider cutting down to 2-3 Leylines on the play.
In general, It's all about how many discard spells they run, how much other random targeted stuff they have, and what your alternative is. It's hard to give a straight answer as it depend so much on the situation. Against decks running only 4 discard spells and nothing else, you either don't board it at all or just do 1-2 copies on the draw.
Mostly I think it just comes down to that the first 57 cards of the deck are a lot more important than the last 3. As long as you have the core of the deck the final few choices are only going to make a marginal difference and it's possible to win with worse variations of a deck. As this was a team event it's hard to know if he even won a lot. What we can see is that the the normal "5th removal spell", Dismember, was unavailable as one of his teammates was using it. In general I find Dromoka's Command fairly terrible as it's completely unreliable in the matchups where you need removal the most. You cannot guarantee that your creatures are larger, it doesn't exile and having to hold up 2 mana instead of 1 is also a huge downside. The flexibility of countering a bolt or killing an enchantment would only make it worth running in very specific metagames.
Open the Armory is awful in Bogles. The extra 2 mana to choose an enchantment from your deck make pretty much every choice terrible. If you want a slower powerful enchantment, which is pretty much what it is, you should be running Unflinching Courage instead. The best reasons to be running Open the Armory is probably the possibility of including Gelid Shackles and Wheel of Sun and Moon as fetch targets, but he's not even doing that so not sure why he's running it.
Spoils of the Vault + Laboratory Maniac isn't really a combo. Or do you mean he played Angel's Grace + Spoils of the Vault + card draw?