Yeah, SCG's arbitrary renames really cause a ton of confusion. I don't understand why they adhere to this "we'll rename everything" policy, when those renames are:
1. Often wrong and poorly checked.
2. Confusing to people entrenched in the format.
3. Cause players new to the format to not understand differences in archetypes.
Hi, I would like to enter in the format and I tested some decks on cockatrice and I am currently hesitating betwin these 3 decks:
- Uw helmet control
- Belcher
- Dredge
Which one is the most competitive in the atcual meta? Thanks !!
Do you plan to play in paper or on MTGO?
If in paper, do you mostly expect play in like local weeklies or at large events?
Also:
By "Dredge", do you mean, LED Dredge, Manaless dredge, or a budget non-LED list with mana?
Could you post or link to the Helm list for reference?
EE7 was this weekend, and I think it's worth noting some of the decks that Top 16'd. Their site isn't the most conducive to copying decklists, so I'll only post the ones that I feel are especially unusual, but I recommend perusing the event's lists here: http://www.eemagic.com/allDecks.php
The top 16 was interesting, with three storm decks in the top 8 and Burn in the finals.
I recommend especially looking at the first place list. While I've generally would not describe myself as much of a fan of Eli Kassis, he's really done an amazing job with the Turbo Depths list for this event. It's just a work of art. If you look at only one list from this event, that's the one to see.
Top 16 list:
1st — Eli Kassis — Turbo Depths
2nd — Patrick Owens — Burn
3rd — Sean Griffith — 4 Color Leovold
4th — Daniel Miller — Miracles
5th — Michael Woiten — ANT
6th — Jack Wang — ANT
7th — Eetai Ben-Sasson — R/W Death and Taxes
8th — James Baxter — TES
9th — Bob Huang — Grixis Delver
10th — Warren Liem — Mono Red Prison
10th — Anthony Loman — Mono Red Prison
11th — Andy Alt — Grixis Delver
12th — Michael Mapson — Esper Delver
13th — Michael Keller — Dredge
15th — Ben Katz — Sultai Leovold
16th — Joe Brennan — Leo and Dr. Bob
ExpiredRascals I believe we are going to need a card by card breakdown to really have a good idea of how strong this deck can be. 😁😉
Other than that I don't see why you wouldn't want a Bring to Light in the board.having 7 copies of it to win off if in a deck this size seems like a good idea. That effectively gives you 11 scapeshifts.
I've never really been into the scapeshifts decks TBH. What is the minimum number of lands needed to deal 20 damage? And how does that work?
Regarding Scapeshift:
7 lands is 18 damage (which is typically lethal in Modern). 8 lands is either 36 or 21 damage, depending on how you fetch.
So breakdown:
The deck doesn't just gun for a scapeshift kill. I don't think that you quite have the density of land-based acceleration to make that the best option. If you think scale this down, we're at the equivalent density of 8.5 land-specific ramp spells in a normal 60 card deck (with maybe an arguable functional 11 due to snapcaster mage, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, and goblin dark-dwellers) -- in this count I am including Hour of Promise and Wargate, but I'm not including Primeval Titan. It's like you built your scapeshift deck and said after Sakura-Tribe Elder and Farseek "well, seems like enough to me". So yeah, you can make it easier to bring to light for Scapeshift, but I don't think that's a powerful enough reason to deny yourself the 4th maindeck bring to light which can efficiently go for cards like Wrath of God or Crumble to Dust when you don't have your lethal land count. Primeval Titan is it's own kill without scapeshift, so I didn't count it in the ramp total since it's not germane to the real question being posed.
Scapeshift may be our best and most common specific kill, but it's not one that is well suited for us going all-in on.
The deck itself hits 5-6 mana quite well, and it's built to be able to stabilize there. You'll notice that there's a lot of very effective threats that play well on defense while being able to hit quite hard. Godo, Bandit Warlord is a great example of this, since he represents 14 damage attack, but also is resilient to removal (no matter what, you probably have a blocker).
My interest is in keeping the deck's ability to function in the early-mid game at its best. We're probably not losing the late game to most decks in the format, and we need to get there, which means being as efficient as possible and keeping open to us those toolboxes we do have at affordable rates.
To comment on a couple of the weird cards: Crumble to Dust and Slaughter Games are concessions to weaknesses against combo decks and decks that can out-ramp us. With 4 maindeck bring to light, these singletons give us some outs (especially slaughter games since it's also available off glittering wish).
Samut, Voice of Dissent is a role-player. She's a vigilant haste threat that is fetchable off Mystical Teachings, Summoner's Pact (and by extension, Tolaria West), and Bring to Light. This is both an out to planeswalkers if they're left undefended (meaning that you can go positive on value compared to just fetching Hour of Devastation with Bring to Light. Her granting haste to everything else hasn't come up too often, just by the nature of being a singleton, but it's been sweet when it does.
Walking Ballista is a card that is generically good, but also tutorable off Tolaria West. It's one of the more flexible slots in the deck. It also does a good job of scaling from 2 or 4 mana to larger numbers.
Panglacial Wurm is a concession to the danger of mana flood, especially in a deck this size. This makes a fetchland or ramp spell represent a threat or surprise blocker. The card is not great, but as a singleton in a 240 card list adding resilience and an extra feature to well over 40 other cards? It does its job.
Summoner's Pact is only a singleton because I've not liked the way it's played out in practice when in multiples in this deck. You're simply not as willing or interested in going all-in on Primeval Titan as Amulet and RG Scapeshift are.
Deck looks awesome and really fun to play. Yeah I don't like all the shuffle effects, seems like it could be a great deck online though.
Yeah, I think online is a much better place to run this (assuming the client can handle it -- I know in the past it used to have some trouble). Shuffling really sucks for this in paper.
I like the idea, but as an avid large deck scapeshift toolbox player I find a couple things wrong with your list.
You want at least 1 Bring to Light in the side to fetch from glittering wish, also you have a bunch of random cards that don't really work with the strategy of the deck.
I have been working on a deck for the past year or so and both our decks have a lot of similarities. The deck has a lot of inspiration from the 150card scapeshift deck that won the poro-tour MTGtop8 poro tour. After doing massive amount of research, playtesting, data analyzing, and of course taking channel fireballs article into consideration this is the list that I have came up with. Main key points about the deck vs a battle of wits deck is, it's consistent as well as easier to shuffle. My win rate from play testing has been really high, and is very resilient against hate cards. As for speed for the deck, it's not as fast as R/G scapeshift, but similar pace as a BTL scapeshift list.
Glittering Wish for Bring to Light has generally not been attractive to me. If I'm looking for a combo kill with a ton of mana off a Glittering Wish, I can just get wargate, which is a more useful spell anyway, since it makes all glittering wishes capable of curving into T3 ramp or of being a 5 mana land destruction spell or grave hate. I'd rather have Bring to Light be a more efficient tutor in the maindeck and then just overpay a little more if I really am in the position to go for a straight kill from Wish. If I change my mind in the future, I'll just swap a MB Bring to Light with the SB Wargate.
I saw that list when it attained success. More power to the pilot, but I don't think it's really related to this. I get that it's oversized, but I think that the difference of 90 cards really results in a major difference of potential construction styles and limits the effectiveness of all-in strategies. Additionally, I've got no interest in traumatizing myself with Battle of Wits. If I'm playing above 60 or 61 cards, I need a real selling point, and to throw away the potential for a Battle Kill for a probablistic flashback kill doesn't seem great to me.
Battle of Wits functions in a number of strange niches. You're trying to cast a 5 mana spell in a competitive format, so outside of Standard, that mean you must be ramp, control, or rather optimistic midrange. Past builds of this ran Remand and Mana Leak, but I found too often you had to decide between hoping they played something relevant or advancing your board. I ended up cutting them and focusing on what the deck can do well. It can ramp well and cast good mid-high cost threats and present a formidable grinding strategy. There is some natural toolboxing, but it needs to be viewed in the context of the rest of the strategy. Yes, you got the "I win" buttons, but at 240 cards, you can't reliably go all-in on them.
If you have any specific comments or questions on cards that look random, by all means ask, but I don't think I can interpret, clarify, or respond to your assertion of issues with the list when your statement remains so broad.
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Unrelated to the above, I made a slight tweak to the above list (dropping thundermaw, upping goblin dark-dwellers to the full playset). Testing it without life from the loam.
I've been toying with Battle of Wits in a variety of formats for some years, and generally I feel that it gets a harsher reputation than it deserves. Before we get to the list, I want to just get some potential misconceptions out of the way:
1. It is definitely possible to upscale to this deck size while having a reasonably cohesive plan. This build was Scapeshift-Ramp, but I've also had success in testing with Battle of Wits variants of Melira-Company, Grixis Control, and Esper Control. I think that Scapeshift has been the best of the group so far though. The key is to just think of the deck as a normal deck multiplied by four. If you have enough extra "duplicate" pieces available, you can maintain ratios. 240 cards has been the sweet spot in my experience, both for the ease of deck design, and as a size that does not really put you at risk of turning off Battle.
2. While it is possible to build competitive versions of decks at the 240 card size, there are differences from normal Magic. Most importantly, while the average draws are equal across sizes, the tails of the distribution grow significantly longer as you increase deck size. You have a hundred lands and one hundred and forty non-lands; all your worst nightmares on mana-screw and mana-flood have not even scratched the surface of what's possible. This sculpts deck-building decisions in that you need to design with a greater eye to being able to ride out flood or screw than a normal 60-card deck would. This mindset can be seen in variety of build choices in the deck below.
3. Shuffling is hell. There have been articles in the past talking about how it is impossible to play Battle of Wits at Comp REL and Pro REL. I have experience playing at those levels and am a judge as well, and with that knowledge base, I think that the articles mostly have it right. The burden on shuffling is prohibitive. My method on shuffling was this: Shuffle the section of the deck that I saw, then split it into four stacks. Split the still-unknown part of the deck onto those four stacks. Shuffle each of the four stacks independently. Take one of those stacks, split it into four new stacks, then split each of the remaining three stacks into the four new stacks. Shuffle each stack independently. Stack the four stacks on top of eachother, present to opponent. This is what is required to fully randomize the deck. Notice that it is an 8x multiplier on shuffling, AND that's before you consider how labouriously long the search through the deck for the card [likely singleton] you just found was. If you are BLAZINGLY fast, you can play this at CompREL, but good luck with that. I was extremely conscientious of time, shortcut my fetches aggressively (I would say "Crack misty, fetch untapped breeding pool, cast rampant growth, find basic plains, go." and then execute the actual physical actions while play continued) and played very very fast to compensate for this time sink. If I were playing a normal deck at this speed, I'd have finished with 35+ minutes on the clock every round. As it was, I had 15-20 minutes on the clock at the end of every round and probably would still have received slow play warnings at higher rules enforcement levels simply due to the amount of time searches could take. These time considerations also make Battle of Wits an even more problematic issue in my main constructed format, Legacy, due to the longer and more interactive games there compared to Modern.
4. In line with the shuffling, I think the deck needs to be designed to not Sideboard. I've built it in the past with sideboards of tutorable bullets, and it's just not effective enough to be worth the time searching for the card you need to pull out. A friend pushed me to a Glittering Wish sideboard and it's both played better in general and greatly improved the time issue with boarding (now you can just start shuffling up the moment the prior game ends, and hopefully be ready by the time they finish boarding).
4. I do not think Battle of Wits can be done effectively on a budget. This is a deck style with which to experiment if you have a collection that stretches back well over a decade or if you have an extremely gracious friend who is okay with you borrowing massive amounts of cards.
5. Be careful with sleeves. More than any other deck, you want to have sleeves that stop sliding around after a short break-in (240 double-sleeved cards falls over quite easily after first sleeving) but are resilient with no markings after a lot of play (you do not want to resleeve this kind of thing. I opted for Dragonshield Matte Black with KMC perfect fits, but if you're taking this on yourself, I'm sure that you have sleeves that you have experience with and like for the purpose.
Note that this is 241 cards. The list I ran for the event described below accidentally excluded Life from the Loam, and I need to make a cut to get it back to size (there's also a couple other things I'm eyeing, such as fitting in the fourth Goblin Dark-Dwellers into the main and a Sphinx's Revelation into the SB).
I'll happily discuss any card choices (and I get that a number are probably head-scratchers), but due to list size, I'm not going to try to do so absent questions.
Round 1: 2-0 RG Scapeshift
I sit down, and I have what looks like a cube sitting in front of me. My opponent makes some comments, I suspect he may know what I'm on — damn.
He suspends Search for tomorrow. I open with ramp and a turn 3 Slaughter Games, nabbing one Scapeshift from his hand and revealing Sakura-Tribe Elder, Hour of Promise, and 2 Summoner's Pact. Two turns later I resolve glittering wish for slaughter games, he tanks and then lets it resolve, I take his two pacts, since I would be just dead to [card=Valakut, the Molten Pinacle]valakut[card] triggers if I take primeval titan and he double pacts for Sakura-Tribe Elders. I survive his draw step as he just puts me to 4 life by drawing a land. I cast my own scapeshift for lethal.
Game two he has a slightly anemic start, and I sequence T2 Khalni Heart Expedition (he Beast Withins it on my next upkeep), T3 Wargate (for land), T4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers (flashing back Wargate for Tectonic Edge. On Turn 5 I stack tectonic edge activations and destroy all of his green mana. He never gets back in the game and if I didn't kill him so quickly with my 7 on-board power, I'd have still had him dead from my well-stocked hand.
Round 2: 0-2 Bant Eldrazi
He has his singleton negate that just doesn't line up against my draw, but he opens with an early Eldrazi Displacer (I path it), matter reshaper, and reality smasher. I answer with Thragtusk, he paths it and trade with matter reshaper. He's out of gas and I return serve with Primeval Titan, but the shockland to cast it puts me to 4. He acknowledges that he's got nothing to stop it, but topdecks a second path and just barely squeaks through a kill. >.<
Game 2: He resolves turn3 TKS on me, taking my path on the one turn I'm tapped out. I draw only lands for the rest of the game.
Round 3: 2-0 Cascade Swans
Game 1: I pathed his swans, and then was resolving Gifts Ungiven for Unburial Rites + Iona, Shield of Emeria him when he scooped. I had Slaughter Games back-up forthcoming as well.
Game 2: I don't really remember this game, but I remember it was a blow-out.
Round 4: 2-0 RG Ponza
Game 1: He wins the roll and opens with his nut-draw killing lands (turn2 stone rain is pretty good), but I lead with Birds of Paradise and my ramp keeps up with his land destruction. He sticks Root Maze and Blood Moon, but I've been searching out basics. I then land Primaval Titan against his fresh board of Thragtusk and Arbor Elf. He responds with Thrun, the Last Troll. I drop a second Primeval titan, and his blood moon and land destruction are now thoroughly irrelevant (well, aside from locking me out of a Valakut kill). I attack with both primeval titans (I'm holding Eternal Witness[/c] and Samut, Voice of Dissent), he double blocks one arbor elf and thragtusk and chumps with thrun (regenerating). I eternal witness back primeval titan and recast it. I'm starting to die inside from so much searching and shuffling from primeval titans (much more than would ever be needed to present lethal without blood moon), but my opponent saves me by conceding.
Game 2: He stumbles on mana, I ramp and land Porphyry Nodes + battle of wits on what I believe was turn 5. His hand would have been hard-pressed to beat Porphyry Nodes, but he didn't have an answer to Battle of Wits, so the game ended on the spot.
It looks like a partial changeover from classic RUG lands to the currently en vogue uRG variant. I hope he writes a recap, because I'd love to see the thought process leading up to the list.
I cannot express my hype. This is the last thing I would have guessed from how badly we got screwed this year.
4 Pure Legacy Grand Prix
4 Constructed Trio Grand Prix
1 Constructed Trio Pro Tour
We don't know half the schedule yet, but here's the locations for the first half of next year:
Jan 5 — Santa Clara, California - Team Trios
March 9 — Madrid, Spain - Team Trios
March 23 — Kyoto - Team Trios
April 5 — Seattle, Washington - Legacy
May 10 — Birmingham, England - Legacy
May 18 — Toronto, Canada - Team Trios
Oh it's really good. You can put it back with brainstorm to allow you to keep a good card, or you can discard it to lion's eye diamond. Plus they never think to chalice for 8, so you get an alternate win con.
Except again, Top wasn't *anything like* Mental Misstep. Mental Misstep was in practically EVERY SINGLE DECK at the time of its banning, because the only way to keep your one mana spells from getting Misstepped was to pack your own. Decks like Zoo and Goblins were running it as a way to make their own spells resolve. About the only decks who didn't pack 4 copies in their 75 were decks that didn't run 1 mana spells at all (like Stompy variants) and Dredge. It was not uncommon to see top8's with 28-32 Mental Missteps in them.
Meanwhile, we've had top 8's with 0 tops, and I think the maximum penetration of top in a major event top8 was something like 14.
Meanwhile, a good number of magic players with non-counterbalance & non-miracle decks are *****ING ABOUT THE LOSS OF TOP....
Yours is a poor argument for a lot of reasons, but for the sake of brevity, I think you need to consider that not all (perhaps not most) of the people sad over the loss of top actually played top.
For example, while I kept miracles built (the punishing variant), it's not losing that deck that bothers me about this ban. I am bothered in part for the reasons elaborated by Wildfire above, but also because I consider Miracles to have been the best case scenario for the format's best deck. It was a very skill-intensive control deck that was eminently attackable on many axes. It had a relatively small market share, compared to other formats' best decks. And lastly, it gave a breathing space for clunkier quirky decks. Miracles was slow and tuned to beat fast, low-to-the-ground decks. Aluren, Cloudpost, and 4C Loam owed a large part of their tournament resumés to the force of miracles in slowing down the format (in addition to each of them crushing miracles themselves).
I am sad to see miracles go because it was a fun match-up for me. It emphasized a slow but high-power game with high emphasis on hidden information and careful maneuvering. I'm worried that the new "best deck" ascendant will be something harder to attack from multiple angles (Lands) and perhaps too fast (Elves), or just boring for me (Delver or 4C Leovold). Note that these aren't decks that I necessarily dislike (for example: I own and enjoy playing Lands), but rather they are decks that I feel would make for an unhealthy "best deck" for the format.
Not sure what to do in Doomsday Tendrils without Top.
The collateral damage from this ban is absurd. Nic Fit, Painter, and Doomsday take significant hits. On a personal note, most of the decks I play just lost one of the their best match-ups.
I see how the manabase is making concessions -- not enough black sources to run discard, etc. But I think you need to have some kind of game 1 plan and a serious game 2 plan against unfair decks.
This might be a 4x Leyline of sanctity sideboard plan deck -- with some other hate cards to stomp the answers to leyline.
A turn 2 GSZ for Gaddock Teeg is actually quite often a hard lock against Storm maindeck, and other unfair decks are either better or worse depending on how they specifically line up to hate like Gaddock Teeg, Scavenging Ooze, and DRS. Lastly, we do have the ability to just "accidentally" hit our "I win" button as early as Turn 2.
Leyline is too rough on the SB slots. Also, I've been generally unimpressed with it in other decks. Most decks that would be stopped by it have the tools to play through it postboard.
Of the unfair decks, the only ones that I haven't felt great against are BR Reanimator and Combo Elves. I'm writing off elves as a match-up that would require impractical commitment to solve, but it does get somewhat impeded by the Engineered Plague that I'm testing in the SB. BR reanimator I read as a soft match-up, but I've beaten it in the last two tournaments that I've faced it, and I accept that not every match-up can be positive. With the amount of spots allocated to it in my board already, I'm comfortable with it as it is.
On the topic of the manabase, you're right that it's making concessions, but those concessions are for resiliency, not budget. Your fallback plan is casting absurdly expensive spells in a field of Wasteland. Maindeck black mana just isn't something I'm interested in fixing for when I can instead be VERY reliable on green mana.
1. Often wrong and poorly checked.
2. Confusing to people entrenched in the format.
3. Cause players new to the format to not understand differences in archetypes.
If in paper, do you mostly expect play in like local weeklies or at large events?
Also:
By "Dredge", do you mean, LED Dredge, Manaless dredge, or a budget non-LED list with mana?
Could you post or link to the Helm list for reference?
The top 16 was interesting, with three storm decks in the top 8 and Burn in the finals.
I recommend especially looking at the first place list. While I've generally would not describe myself as much of a fan of Eli Kassis, he's really done an amazing job with the Turbo Depths list for this event. It's just a work of art. If you look at only one list from this event, that's the one to see.
Top 16 list:
1st — Eli Kassis — Turbo Depths
2nd — Patrick Owens — Burn
3rd — Sean Griffith — 4 Color Leovold
4th — Daniel Miller — Miracles
5th — Michael Woiten — ANT
6th — Jack Wang — ANT
7th — Eetai Ben-Sasson — R/W Death and Taxes
8th — James Baxter — TES
9th — Bob Huang — Grixis Delver
10th — Warren Liem — Mono Red Prison
10th — Anthony Loman — Mono Red Prison
11th — Andy Alt — Grixis Delver
12th — Michael Mapson — Esper Delver
13th — Michael Keller — Dredge
15th — Ben Katz — Sultai Leovold
16th — Joe Brennan — Leo and Dr. Bob
Unusual decks:
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
4 Vampire Hexmage
1 Cabal Therapy
4 Crop Rotation
1 Duress
3 Gitaxian Probe
2 Hymn to Tourach
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Into the North
4 Living Wish
4 Lotus Petal
3 Pithing Needle
1 Sylvan Library
2 Thoughtseize
3 Dark Depths
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
3 Thespian's Stage
3 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
4 Verdant Catacombs
1 Abrupt Decay
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Dark Depths
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Karakas
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Reclamation Sage
3 Surgical Extraction
1 Sylvan Safekeeper
1 Thespian's Stage
4 Delver of Secrets
3 Gurmag Angler
4 Brainstorm
4 Daze
3 Fatal Push
4 Force of Will
3 Lingering Souls
4 Ponder
1 Spell Snare
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Thought Scour
2 Thoughtseize
1 Marsh Flats
1 Misty Rainforest
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scrubland
1 Tropical Island
2 Tundra
3 Underground Sea
4 Wasteland
1 Containment Priest
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Disenchant
2 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Flusterstorm
2 Hymn to Tourach
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 Null Rod
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Vindicate
1 Zealous Persecution
4 Deathrite Shaman
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Eternal Witness
3 Leovold, Emissary of Trest
1 Ramunap Excavator
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Tarmogoyf
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Brainstorm
2 Fatal Push
4 Force of Will
4 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Murderous Cut
4 Ponder
2 Unearth
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Forest
3 Misty Rainforest
1 Polluted Delta
1 Swamp
2 Tropical Island
2 Underground Sea
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Wasteland
2 Far
2 Flusterstorm
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Marsh Casualties
2 Mindbreak Trap
1 Pithing Needle
2 Thoughtseize
7 lands is 18 damage (which is typically lethal in Modern). 8 lands is either 36 or 21 damage, depending on how you fetch.
So breakdown:
The deck doesn't just gun for a scapeshift kill. I don't think that you quite have the density of land-based acceleration to make that the best option. If you think scale this down, we're at the equivalent density of 8.5 land-specific ramp spells in a normal 60 card deck (with maybe an arguable functional 11 due to snapcaster mage, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, and goblin dark-dwellers) -- in this count I am including Hour of Promise and Wargate, but I'm not including Primeval Titan. It's like you built your scapeshift deck and said after Sakura-Tribe Elder and Farseek "well, seems like enough to me". So yeah, you can make it easier to bring to light for Scapeshift, but I don't think that's a powerful enough reason to deny yourself the 4th maindeck bring to light which can efficiently go for cards like Wrath of God or Crumble to Dust when you don't have your lethal land count. Primeval Titan is it's own kill without scapeshift, so I didn't count it in the ramp total since it's not germane to the real question being posed.
Scapeshift may be our best and most common specific kill, but it's not one that is well suited for us going all-in on.
The deck itself hits 5-6 mana quite well, and it's built to be able to stabilize there. You'll notice that there's a lot of very effective threats that play well on defense while being able to hit quite hard. Godo, Bandit Warlord is a great example of this, since he represents 14 damage attack, but also is resilient to removal (no matter what, you probably have a blocker).
Primary kills might be characterized as follows: Scapeshift (including Bring to Light for it), Primeval Titan (note the ability to go for Tolaria West + Simic Growth Chamber, or valakuts, or man-lands), Battle of Wits, and Gifts Ungiven (for Unburial Rites).
Secondary kills are the more dual-purpose cards that are meant to be multifunctional or stabilizing. This includes stuff like Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Thragtusk, Batterskull (and by extension: Godo, Bandit Warlord, and Nahiri, the Harbinger (normally the ultimate fetches Primeval Titan or Inferno Titan).
My interest is in keeping the deck's ability to function in the early-mid game at its best. We're probably not losing the late game to most decks in the format, and we need to get there, which means being as efficient as possible and keeping open to us those toolboxes we do have at affordable rates.
To comment on a couple of the weird cards:
Crumble to Dust and Slaughter Games are concessions to weaknesses against combo decks and decks that can out-ramp us. With 4 maindeck bring to light, these singletons give us some outs (especially slaughter games since it's also available off glittering wish).
Samut, Voice of Dissent is a role-player. She's a vigilant haste threat that is fetchable off Mystical Teachings, Summoner's Pact (and by extension, Tolaria West), and Bring to Light. This is both an out to planeswalkers if they're left undefended (meaning that you can go positive on value compared to just fetching Hour of Devastation with Bring to Light. Her granting haste to everything else hasn't come up too often, just by the nature of being a singleton, but it's been sweet when it does.
Supreme Verdict/Wrath of God/Day of Judgement/Hour of Devastion is mostly just diversification in case you need to Gifts Ungiven for a sweeper. Anger of the Gods, Sweltering Suns, and Engineered Explosives could be included in this group as well (and with them, note that you can gifts for a sweeper that costs no white mana, which sometimes matters).
Walking Ballista is a card that is generically good, but also tutorable off Tolaria West. It's one of the more flexible slots in the deck. It also does a good job of scaling from 2 or 4 mana to larger numbers.
Panglacial Wurm is a concession to the danger of mana flood, especially in a deck this size. This makes a fetchland or ramp spell represent a threat or surprise blocker. The card is not great, but as a singleton in a 240 card list adding resilience and an extra feature to well over 40 other cards? It does its job.
Simic Growth Chamber is there to pair with Tolaria West and Summoner's Pact to allow a Primeval Titan to self-protect via a ready replacement in the way that should be familiar from Amulet Bloom. This comes up more than you'd think.
Summoner's Pact is only a singleton because I've not liked the way it's played out in practice when in multiples in this deck. You're simply not as willing or interested in going all-in on Primeval Titan as Amulet and RG Scapeshift are.
Boreal Shelf et al are there to allow Into the North to fetch duals. Snow lands in general are chosen to enable Into the North, and to a lesser extent, Mouth of Ronom
Glittering Wish for Bring to Light has generally not been attractive to me. If I'm looking for a combo kill with a ton of mana off a Glittering Wish, I can just get wargate, which is a more useful spell anyway, since it makes all glittering wishes capable of curving into T3 ramp or of being a 5 mana land destruction spell or grave hate. I'd rather have Bring to Light be a more efficient tutor in the maindeck and then just overpay a little more if I really am in the position to go for a straight kill from Wish. If I change my mind in the future, I'll just swap a MB Bring to Light with the SB Wargate.
I saw that list when it attained success. More power to the pilot, but I don't think it's really related to this. I get that it's oversized, but I think that the difference of 90 cards really results in a major difference of potential construction styles and limits the effectiveness of all-in strategies. Additionally, I've got no interest in traumatizing myself with Battle of Wits. If I'm playing above 60 or 61 cards, I need a real selling point, and to throw away the potential for a Battle Kill for a probablistic flashback kill doesn't seem great to me.
Battle of Wits functions in a number of strange niches. You're trying to cast a 5 mana spell in a competitive format, so outside of Standard, that mean you must be ramp, control, or rather optimistic midrange. Past builds of this ran Remand and Mana Leak, but I found too often you had to decide between hoping they played something relevant or advancing your board. I ended up cutting them and focusing on what the deck can do well. It can ramp well and cast good mid-high cost threats and present a formidable grinding strategy. There is some natural toolboxing, but it needs to be viewed in the context of the rest of the strategy. Yes, you got the "I win" buttons, but at 240 cards, you can't reliably go all-in on them.
If you have any specific comments or questions on cards that look random, by all means ask, but I don't think I can interpret, clarify, or respond to your assertion of issues with the list when your statement remains so broad.
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Unrelated to the above, I made a slight tweak to the above list (dropping thundermaw, upping goblin dark-dwellers to the full playset). Testing it without life from the loam.
1. It is definitely possible to upscale to this deck size while having a reasonably cohesive plan. This build was Scapeshift-Ramp, but I've also had success in testing with Battle of Wits variants of Melira-Company, Grixis Control, and Esper Control. I think that Scapeshift has been the best of the group so far though. The key is to just think of the deck as a normal deck multiplied by four. If you have enough extra "duplicate" pieces available, you can maintain ratios. 240 cards has been the sweet spot in my experience, both for the ease of deck design, and as a size that does not really put you at risk of turning off Battle.
2. While it is possible to build competitive versions of decks at the 240 card size, there are differences from normal Magic. Most importantly, while the average draws are equal across sizes, the tails of the distribution grow significantly longer as you increase deck size. You have a hundred lands and one hundred and forty non-lands; all your worst nightmares on mana-screw and mana-flood have not even scratched the surface of what's possible. This sculpts deck-building decisions in that you need to design with a greater eye to being able to ride out flood or screw than a normal 60-card deck would. This mindset can be seen in variety of build choices in the deck below.
3. Shuffling is hell. There have been articles in the past talking about how it is impossible to play Battle of Wits at Comp REL and Pro REL. I have experience playing at those levels and am a judge as well, and with that knowledge base, I think that the articles mostly have it right. The burden on shuffling is prohibitive. My method on shuffling was this: Shuffle the section of the deck that I saw, then split it into four stacks. Split the still-unknown part of the deck onto those four stacks. Shuffle each of the four stacks independently. Take one of those stacks, split it into four new stacks, then split each of the remaining three stacks into the four new stacks. Shuffle each stack independently. Stack the four stacks on top of eachother, present to opponent. This is what is required to fully randomize the deck. Notice that it is an 8x multiplier on shuffling, AND that's before you consider how labouriously long the search through the deck for the card [likely singleton] you just found was. If you are BLAZINGLY fast, you can play this at CompREL, but good luck with that. I was extremely conscientious of time, shortcut my fetches aggressively (I would say "Crack misty, fetch untapped breeding pool, cast rampant growth, find basic plains, go." and then execute the actual physical actions while play continued) and played very very fast to compensate for this time sink. If I were playing a normal deck at this speed, I'd have finished with 35+ minutes on the clock every round. As it was, I had 15-20 minutes on the clock at the end of every round and probably would still have received slow play warnings at higher rules enforcement levels simply due to the amount of time searches could take. These time considerations also make Battle of Wits an even more problematic issue in my main constructed format, Legacy, due to the longer and more interactive games there compared to Modern.
4. In line with the shuffling, I think the deck needs to be designed to not Sideboard. I've built it in the past with sideboards of tutorable bullets, and it's just not effective enough to be worth the time searching for the card you need to pull out. A friend pushed me to a Glittering Wish sideboard and it's both played better in general and greatly improved the time issue with boarding (now you can just start shuffling up the moment the prior game ends, and hopefully be ready by the time they finish boarding).
4. I do not think Battle of Wits can be done effectively on a budget. This is a deck style with which to experiment if you have a collection that stretches back well over a decade or if you have an extremely gracious friend who is okay with you borrowing massive amounts of cards.
5. Be careful with sleeves. More than any other deck, you want to have sleeves that stop sliding around after a short break-in (240 double-sleeved cards falls over quite easily after first sleeving) but are resilient with no markings after a lot of play (you do not want to resleeve this kind of thing. I opted for Dragonshield Matte Black with KMC perfect fits, but if you're taking this on yourself, I'm sure that you have sleeves that you have experience with and like for the purpose.
Anyway, here's the deck:
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Batterskull
// 43 Creature
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Walking Ballista
4 Thragtusk
4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Samut, Voice of Dissent
4 Godo, Bandit Warlord
4 Primeval Titan
1 Inferno Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Panglacial Wurm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
// 10 Enchantment
2 Porphyry Nodes
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Battle of Wits
// 17 Instant
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
1 Lightning Helix
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Summoner's Pact
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Sphinx's Revelation
// 9 Planeswalker
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
// 56 Sorcery
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Explore
4 Farseek
4 Into the North
4 Rampant Growth
4 Search for Tomorrow
3 Wargate
4 Glittering Wish
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Sweltering Suns
4 Scapeshift
2 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Slaughter Games
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Day of Judgement
1 Wrath of God
4 Bring to Light
1 Hour of Devastation
1 Hour of Promise
1 Unburial Rites
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Arid Mesa
3 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple Garden
4 Breeding Pool
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Steam Vents
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
4 Sheltered Thicket
4 Cinder Glade
1 Prairie Stream
1 Canopy Vista
7 Snow-Covered Forest
3 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Coverered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Highland Weald
1 Frost Marsh
1 Tresserhorn Sinks
1 Arctic Flats
1 Boreal Shelf
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Tolaria West
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Stirring Wildwood
3 Raging Ravine
2 Lumbering Falls
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Vesuva
1 Crime // Punishment
1 Detention Sphere
1 Fiery Justice
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Heroes' Reunion
1 Jund Charm
1 Kolagan's Command
1 Lightning Helix
1 Slaughter Games
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wargate
1 Wear // Tear
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Samut, Voice of Dissent
3 Engineered Explosives
3 Batterskull
// 43 Creature
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
4 Snapcaster Mage
1 Eternal Witness
1 Walking Ballista
4 Thragtusk
3 Goblin Dark-Dwellers
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
1 Samut, Voice of Dissent
4 Godo, Bandit Warlord
4 Primeval Titan
1 Inferno Titan
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Panglacial Wurm
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
// 10 Enchantment
2 Porphyry Nodes
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
4 Battle of Wits
// 17 Instant
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Path to Exile
1 Lightning Helix
4 Gifts Ungiven
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Summoner's Pact
1 Mystical Teachings
1 Sphinx's Revelation
// 9 Planeswalker
4 Jace, Architect of Thought
4 Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 Chandra, Flamecaller
// 56 Sorcery
4 Serum Visions
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Explore
4 Farseek
4 Into the North
4 Rampant Growth
1 Life from the Loam
4 Search for Tomorrow
3 Wargate
4 Glittering Wish
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Sweltering Suns
4 Scapeshift
2 Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Slaughter Games
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Day of Judgement
1 Wrath of God
4 Bring to Light
1 Hour of Devastation
1 Hour of Promise
1 Unburial Rites
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswept Heath
4 Misty Rainforest
4 Verdant Catacombs
2 Arid Mesa
3 Flooded Strand
3 Scalding Tarn
4 Stomping Ground
4 Temple Garden
4 Breeding Pool
2 Hallowed Fountain
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Steam Vents
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Godless Shrine
1 Watery Grave
1 Blood Crypt
4 Sheltered Thicket
4 Cinder Glade
1 Prairie Stream
1 Canopy Vista
7 Snow-Covered Forest
3 Snow-Covered Plains
2 Snow-Covered Island
2 Snow-Coverered Mountain
1 Snow-Covered Swamp
1 Highland Weald
1 Frost Marsh
1 Tresserhorn Sinks
1 Arctic Flats
1 Boreal Shelf
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Tolaria West
1 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bojuka Bog
3 Stirring Wildwood
3 Raging Ravine
2 Lumbering Falls
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Tectonic Edge
2 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Vesuva
1 Crime // Punishment
1 Detention Sphere
1 Fiery Justice
1 Fracturing Gust
1 Heroes' Reunion
1 Jund Charm
1 Kolagan's Command
1 Lightning Helix
1 Slaughter Games
1 Supreme Verdict
1 Wargate
1 Wear // Tear
1 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa
1 Samut, Voice of Dissent
I sit down, and I have what looks like a cube sitting in front of me. My opponent makes some comments, I suspect he may know what I'm on — damn.
He suspends Search for tomorrow. I open with ramp and a turn 3 Slaughter Games, nabbing one Scapeshift from his hand and revealing Sakura-Tribe Elder, Hour of Promise, and 2 Summoner's Pact. Two turns later I resolve glittering wish for slaughter games, he tanks and then lets it resolve, I take his two pacts, since I would be just dead to [card=Valakut, the Molten Pinacle]valakut[card] triggers if I take primeval titan and he double pacts for Sakura-Tribe Elders. I survive his draw step as he just puts me to 4 life by drawing a land. I cast my own scapeshift for lethal.
Game two he has a slightly anemic start, and I sequence T2 Khalni Heart Expedition (he Beast Withins it on my next upkeep), T3 Wargate (for land), T4 Goblin Dark-Dwellers (flashing back Wargate for Tectonic Edge. On Turn 5 I stack tectonic edge activations and destroy all of his green mana. He never gets back in the game and if I didn't kill him so quickly with my 7 on-board power, I'd have still had him dead from my well-stocked hand.
Round 2: 0-2 Bant Eldrazi
He has his singleton negate that just doesn't line up against my draw, but he opens with an early Eldrazi Displacer (I path it), matter reshaper, and reality smasher. I answer with Thragtusk, he paths it and trade with matter reshaper. He's out of gas and I return serve with Primeval Titan, but the shockland to cast it puts me to 4. He acknowledges that he's got nothing to stop it, but topdecks a second path and just barely squeaks through a kill. >.<
Game 2: He resolves turn3 TKS on me, taking my path on the one turn I'm tapped out. I draw only lands for the rest of the game.
Round 3: 2-0 Cascade Swans
Game 1: I pathed his swans, and then was resolving Gifts Ungiven for Unburial Rites + Iona, Shield of Emeria him when he scooped. I had Slaughter Games back-up forthcoming as well.
Game 2: I don't really remember this game, but I remember it was a blow-out.
Round 4: 2-0 RG Ponza
Game 1: He wins the roll and opens with his nut-draw killing lands (turn2 stone rain is pretty good), but I lead with Birds of Paradise and my ramp keeps up with his land destruction. He sticks Root Maze and Blood Moon, but I've been searching out basics. I then land Primaval Titan against his fresh board of Thragtusk and Arbor Elf. He responds with Thrun, the Last Troll. I drop a second Primeval titan, and his blood moon and land destruction are now thoroughly irrelevant (well, aside from locking me out of a Valakut kill). I attack with both primeval titans (I'm holding Eternal Witness[/c] and Samut, Voice of Dissent), he double blocks one arbor elf and thragtusk and chumps with thrun (regenerating). I eternal witness back primeval titan and recast it. I'm starting to die inside from so much searching and shuffling from primeval titans (much more than would ever be needed to present lethal without blood moon), but my opponent saves me by conceding.
Game 2: He stumbles on mana, I ramp and land Porphyry Nodes + battle of wits on what I believe was turn 5. His hand would have been hard-pressed to beat Porphyry Nodes, but he didn't have an answer to Battle of Wits, so the game ended on the spot.
4 Crop Rotation
4 Exploration
3 Gamble
3 Punishing Fire
3 Engineered Explosives
1 Crucible of Worlds
4 Mox Diamond
1 The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Karakas
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Academy Ruins
3 Maze of Ith
2 Dark Depths
3 Thespian Stage
4 Wasteland
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Rishadan Port
2 Tolaria West
1 Sheltered Thicket
3 Grove of the Burnwillows
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Windswept Foothills
1 Wooded Foothills
2 Tropical Island
2 Taiga
1 Forest
3 Krosan Grip
1 Song of the Dryads
3 Tireless Tracker
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Chalice of the Void
2 Thorn of Amethyst
4 Sphere of Resistance
It looks like a partial changeover from classic RUG lands to the currently en vogue uRG variant. I hope he writes a recap, because I'd love to see the thought process leading up to the list.
EDIT: Link to the posted list
4 Pure Legacy Grand Prix
4 Constructed Trio Grand Prix
1 Constructed Trio Pro Tour
We don't know half the schedule yet, but here's the locations for the first half of next year:
Jan 5 — Santa Clara, California - Team Trios
March 9 — Madrid, Spain - Team Trios
March 23 — Kyoto - Team Trios
April 5 — Seattle, Washington - Legacy
May 10 — Birmingham, England - Legacy
May 18 — Toronto, Canada - Team Trios
And yes, that is back-to-back weekends in May.
GP Announcement:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/organized-play/2018-grand-prix-details-2017-07-20
PT Announcement:
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/organized-play/2018s-pro-tours-and-2017s-worlds-2017-07-19
EDIT: added corrected achedule
Will do.
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For example, while I kept miracles built (the punishing variant), it's not losing that deck that bothers me about this ban. I am bothered in part for the reasons elaborated by Wildfire above, but also because I consider Miracles to have been the best case scenario for the format's best deck. It was a very skill-intensive control deck that was eminently attackable on many axes. It had a relatively small market share, compared to other formats' best decks. And lastly, it gave a breathing space for clunkier quirky decks. Miracles was slow and tuned to beat fast, low-to-the-ground decks. Aluren, Cloudpost, and 4C Loam owed a large part of their tournament resumés to the force of miracles in slowing down the format (in addition to each of them crushing miracles themselves).
I am sad to see miracles go because it was a fun match-up for me. It emphasized a slow but high-power game with high emphasis on hidden information and careful maneuvering. I'm worried that the new "best deck" ascendant will be something harder to attack from multiple angles (Lands) and perhaps too fast (Elves), or just boring for me (Delver or 4C Leovold). Note that these aren't decks that I necessarily dislike (for example: I own and enjoy playing Lands), but rather they are decks that I feel would make for an unhealthy "best deck" for the format.
Leyline is too rough on the SB slots. Also, I've been generally unimpressed with it in other decks. Most decks that would be stopped by it have the tools to play through it postboard.
Of the unfair decks, the only ones that I haven't felt great against are BR Reanimator and Combo Elves. I'm writing off elves as a match-up that would require impractical commitment to solve, but it does get somewhat impeded by the Engineered Plague that I'm testing in the SB. BR reanimator I read as a soft match-up, but I've beaten it in the last two tournaments that I've faced it, and I accept that not every match-up can be positive. With the amount of spots allocated to it in my board already, I'm comfortable with it as it is.
On the topic of the manabase, you're right that it's making concessions, but those concessions are for resiliency, not budget. Your fallback plan is casting absurdly expensive spells in a field of Wasteland. Maindeck black mana just isn't something I'm interested in fixing for when I can instead be VERY reliable on green mana.