In the burn match his only outs were Bolt or Spike off the top (I had a multiple creatures and a flippable JVP in play with two Blessed Alliance at 5 life; he had 3 lands in play with only a Skullcrack in hand). Burn does as they do and rips a bolt.
The spirits match was interesting - he ran super hot in game 3 (double Coco, rattlechains for my path, spell queller for my blocker I was trying to hard cast through Thalia).
Is Mistcaller really that bad for us though? Sure we don’t reanimate anything, but they don’t get anything back either. In that case, Living End just becomes a board wipe, which is still pretty good against Merfolk. I’d rather see Mistcaller sitting on the other side of the table turn 1 than Cursecatcher any day.
Remorseful Cleric is more problematic because it’s a card that can be put into Spirits, which isn’t a great matchup. I feel like our standard game plan of Living End wiping the board is good enough against other creature toolbox decks that if our opponent chooses to Chord for it, isn’t that still good for us? They use a Chord to ensure that we don’t get anything back, and then they lose their board anyways. I’m more scared of my opponent floating mana for a post-Living End Collected Company.
In all of these matchups, the main problem is getting the first Living End to resolve to alleviate pressure. I’ve found that piecing together a win from there is a pretty reasonable ask.
Previously had been playing for about 5 weeks with 4 Spreading Seas instead of Siren Stormtamer. It comes down early as protection from burn spells (also a bad matchup), discard spells, and gives the deck additional play with it returning off Living End. There are also some decks that can't really beat it - Ad Nauseam is cold to it unless they have the Laboratory Maniac kill, and it randomly blocks against Affinity (favorably) and Infect (less so, but still pretty well - they can only get by with Blighted Agent and Apostle's Blessing).
I've cut Street Wraith for now - the life loss is non-trivial in such an aggressive meta. If KCI/Tron start to become truly dominant, I think I'd be happier putting them back in, but even then, I don't feel that the problem is that we draw cards too slowly - the problem is whether or not we can live long enough to get an As Foretold to stick. I've added a 21st land, and the Cliques/Obstructionist.
On our creature base:
I think that we really want Riverwinder and Curator. Those do the heavy lifting in many games. I've started playing more interactive elements because it allows for a) a better plan B should we not be able to find our namesake cards and b) it makes our matchups less polarizing - all of a sudden, we aren't such a dog to aggressive strategies while at the same time maintaining our cards that are very good against controlling ones. Cliques and Obstructionist have continued to impress me, and Stormtamer has been pretty good as well in my limited testing.
On the meta:
I'm of the opinion that a meta full of Jeskai is good for us, as we have many ways to grind them out and put ourselves into an advantageous position in terms of resources. I personally have not experienced any issues with the Shadow matchup - although I imagine part of that is having to do with my playing Chalice and another part of it has to do with me having a sideboard that allows me to shift into an even grindier plan that does not rely on the Living End to close a game. I have lost plenty of games to Jund though - I'm not quite sure what I want to be doing in that matchup. Humans is a coin flip - Thalia, Guardian of Thraben draws are hard to beat, Meddling Mage is only bad if they know what we're on or what to name, and Kitesail Freebooter hurts but is not the end of the world. I haven't played the KCI matchup, but I imagine that it should be fine? We play ~ 8 counterspells mainboard which should delay a resolution of Krark-Clan Ironworks long enough for us to win.
The list was played at various weekly Modern events (about 12-18 players), as well as a Card Kingdom 1k event in which I Top 8'd as the 2 seed, only to mulligan to oblivion against Abzan on camera. The list was back when I was playing a mono-blue mainboard with the Spirit Guides for early Chalices/As Foretolds/Jaces. I actually finished compiling my data yesterday evening - the record was 41-25-3 over that period. I've since moved to splashing because of the tools it can lend to beating bad matchups - matchups like Titanshift or Storm.
Right now I'm on a UW list that I've been happy with - although I don't find the need for cards like Glassdust Hulk. If I were going to play a cycler that wasn't Street Wraith, Curator, or Riverwinder, it would probably be Architects of Will rather than Hulk. I've also tried the black splash but Collective Brutality is the main draw there - and it's a card that doesn't quite outweigh what white can offer (although it is VERY good when it's good). I run a mainboard EE and Chalice, with the other three Chalices in the board.
I still maintain that Chalice is a very good card for our deck since it doesn't hit much (Path, if you play it), if it hits anything at all.
Hi all - its been a while. Not sure how many of us remain playing the deck; I've been on relative online silence as I compile a bunch of testing results.
I played something like 100 matches in-person with my last posted build on this forum (the one with the Simian Spirit Guides and Chalices mainboard). I'll have to compile the rest of the results and the matchup percentages, but I had something like a 60% winrate in matches with the deck when I was about halfway through my notes. Keep in mind that my build has been changed for about a 4-6 weeks, so meta may have varied at that time.
Which brings me to now (and the last couple months). I've been experimenting with both the white and black splashes, and have been more happy with the white splash. I've been mixed on Path - my opinion is that its generally felt mediocre. YMMV obviously, but that's just been my own general feeling.
My current list has 3 flex spots in it right now (I'll post later), all of which are going towards testing Wall of Omens as a cycling blocker that buys us time to "go off", while also coming back to draw us more cards later. I've been theorizing about some cool sideboard tech in white like Worship or Ghostly Prison to beat aggressive decks (Prison in particular is probably pretty good against Humans, which appears to be one of the consensus worst matchups).
I've also thought about replacing the Wall of Omens with Meddling Mages mainboard, to give us some extra game against combo decks and removal-light midrange decks (GW valuetown, etc.). Getting it Path'd is completely fine, and there's a higher incentive for an opponent to Path a Meddling Mage than a Wall of Omens.
Recent innovation with simian spirit guide interests me, but I wonder how good this truly is when the best Chalice deck in modern doesn't even bother anymore (eldrazi tron).
I've got a playset of spirit guides sleeved up ready to go, but realistically what does this card offer that some powerful counterspells or interaction don't?
Fair question I feel. Would love to have that discussion.
I think that one of the reasons why E-Tron doesn’t play it is because it has no need for it. The deck is already playing Tron lands with Temples to accelerate their mana, and their best 1 mana play is map anyways. I’ve always thought of E-Tron as a deck that can often beat you without Chalices, it just happens to play them and sometimes score free wins off of them. I think that our deck is in the same vein, but we have more high impact plays than E-Tron does at a more consistent rate.
What I mean by this is that yes, E-Tron will sometimes Karn you on 3, but by and large, they’re playing TKS on 3. Compare this to our deck that’s built around our namesake card in As Foretold - resolving it earlier in the game gives it longer to have an impact, and we can offset the card disadvantage with the draw from our DIY Ancestral Recalls. If I had the choice between interaction and As Foretold on turn 2, I think I would take the latter every time, even against aggressive strategies, because of how strong our deck is when we have one in play.
That’s not even the entire argument for the SSGs though - that’s the beauty of it. Sometimes you DO need the interaction, or maybe the game will just be won if you resolve a Chalice on 1. Sometimes you want to resolve a vital spell before your opponent hits you with Thoughtseize or TKS. For those matchups, you get to SSG into Chalice on turn 1, and brick your opponent out of the game for a while. That kind of upside is huge, and the flexibility of the card to buy us time - not by delaying our opponent, but accelerating our game plan - is the biggest argument for it IMO. Especially with Jace coming into the format - we can SSG into Jace on 3, and brick a lot of the Abrupt Decays of the world while at the same time resolve a must-answer threat against midrange or control decks.
We don’t even have to play 4 - our deck is already fine without the acceleration, you can just put SSG into your flex spots. I don’t know if I would cut lands, because lands are still good for our deck, but there’s certainly some awkward cards that I think could be cut for it.
I suppose the argument for SSG is tied in huge part to the inclusion of Chalice in our deck - it’s not nearly as good when you’re pitching a SSG for a non-permanent that doesn’t continue to influence the game, and Chalice is about the most backbreaking 2-drop our deck can reasonably play. They aren’t vital to our game plan - they just help us put out our haymakers faster, and when we’re playing a color not at all known for accelerating the pace of the game, the surprise factor ‘gets’ people; your blue opponents can’t tap out as frequently because they have to respect that you might just have it, and your nonblue opponent have to respect even a single Island when they try to resolve their key spell (ie. Jace) only for it to be hit by SSG-Remand after you ‘tapped out’ on turn 4 to resolve an As Foretold.
I haven’t tested it yet, but the idea is continuing to linger in my mind for longer than I thought it would. Because of that reason, I thought it might warrant some discussion here, to convince myself I’m either crazy or onto something.
Took my list to the Card Kingdom 1K this past weekend. There were 7 rounds of Swiss, and I started the day with a 5-0 record, good for double ID into Top 8 as the 2 seed. I proceeded to then mulligan to 4 on the play against Abzan (I later found out that his opener that game was 3 lands, Inquisition, Thoughtseize, LotV. I lost and was sad, but at least I placed well.
I do love playing Chalices mainboard. It feels good against the fast decks (exception being Affinity, but even then Chalice on 1 locks out Galvanic Blast. We can win a lot of games off the strength of the deck’s win condition against the slower decks.
Moving forward, I’ll be cutting Obstructionist and Supreme Will completely and a single Cryptic to make room for 2 Jaces, and 3 Simian Spirit Guides. It makes me sad, since I have a soft spot for all those cards, but I think Jace is simply too strong not to play while Simian Spirit Guide can power out completely busted turns (Foretold on 2, Chalice for 1 on 1, and Jace on 3 seem really good). I also have all my games for the past month recorded in my notes along with deck archetype, and will compile them all into an easy to read data report at some point. More to come.
Purk's not trolling. He's one of the more active minds on the Taking Turns thread, and has contributed a lot of good points there. I don't necessarily agree with every point that Purk makes, but I definitely think that his point on lowering the curve of our interaction is a valid point to be making. Like it or not, Modern rewards aggressive, proactive play due to the wide range of high-impact threats with not enough clean answers.
How do we take this deck from fringe flavor of the month to tier 1? I like to think that we can be united in trying to answer this question. I can't help but feel like for a lot of the tweaks I've made on this deck, I keep getting this 'almost there' feeling. Almost there is still not there at the end of the day.
For my part, I have a few points I primarily wanted to raise:
Spell Snares and Chalices
Spell Snare seems to be a great direction to go. 2 is a vitally important spot for a lot of decks - it also allows us to come up tempo-positive in a deck where every mana matters. It's definitely at its best on the draw, but even if you are on the play, turn 2 cycle with Snare up is a perfectly fine position to be in.
I think my main issue at the moment is that I'm not sure whether or not we could potentially be a Chalice of the Void deck. Yeah, it's not "draw go" like would be nice, but its definitely a card that a lot of decks in Modern cannot answer, especially pre-board, in a deck that can search it up with Tolaria West. You could also feasibly build around Chalice in a way that limits or completely eliminates the impact that a Chalice on 1 has on your own deck. Our deck has no need for the standard Serum Visions/Opt package that other blue decks need because of the nature of our game plan playing a bunch of 1-mana cyclers.
Of the two above points, I do tend to lean towards the Chalice plan. The downside is that it takes you away from the 1-mana spell plan, but even then, its not terrible. Eldrazi Tron still plays Expedition Map in their Chalice deck.
Cycler package
We have a few cyclers available to us, and there doesn't appear to be a consensus as to a cycler package. How many creatures/cyclers do we play? What mix of cyclers? Do we mainboard Nimble Obstructionist?
I'm of the firm opinion that Riverwinder and Curator are 4-ofs. Street Wraith is a 4-of, and the one I love the most and hate the most at the same time (see: aggro matchups). That puts us at 12 creatures, but where do we go from here? Architects of Will and Nimble Obstructionist are the two obvious choices.
I'm of the opinion that our deck wants at least 14-15 cyclers. Why? That I wouldn't be able to tell you - it feels smoother? I like drawing cards?
Street Wraith
Speaking of the love-hate with this card, how correct is it to cycle this card against aggro matchups? It feels abysmal to do it against burn, but you need to establish a clock somehow. Do you side this card out? Why? I'm not quite sure what to think about this one. I'm pretty much always cycling it regardless of the matchup, but I haven't sided it out and I'm not sure how it might affect the deck's consistency doing so. I could go either way on how to use this card both in-game as well as how it relates to sideboarding.
Tolaria West toolbox
How deep do we go (aside from the obvious fetch Living End or Ancestral Vision)? I think that the Bojuka Bog is great. EE is reasonable, but less so for mono-blue builds (if you don't have a land that produces colorless, you're not using EE to get around Chalice on 0). Pact of Negation is one that I have thought about, but then I reread the text on Obstructionist and the thought became much less good (although it would seem reasonable for certain matchups). Crypt is fine out of the board - it doesn't feel great, but the opportunity cost is pretty low.
What are your guys' thoughts?
My LGS has Modern on Sundays and Mondays - I'm going to try to start actually taking notes on paper as opposed to this Boogieboard (basically an electronic etch-and-sketch for those that don't know). I'm going to try recording the results in a spreadsheet.
The entire deck is foil - I’ve been known to play a fully-foiled out Taking Turns deck in the past.
Anyways, I was going to provide a couple tournament reports, but I got home at about midnight a couple nights back when I wanted to post them, and my memory isn’t good enough to remember all of both days of Magic. What I do remember:
- Grinding out post-board games against Lantern with Search for Azcanta and my cyclers - note that this matchup felt really good for us because we play so many problem cards for them as well as cyclers.
- Getting smashed by Burn and not feeling there was a good way out.
- Turn 3 Living End for a Curator, and winning via 5 attack steps.
- Unsubstantiate ‘countering’ creatures cast off of Cavern of Souls
- Turn 0 Leylines followed by Turn 2 Chalices
- Boarding in less than 4 ‘value’ Chalices - ones that I eventually wanted to set on 1 and 2 but had time in the matchup to search up with Tolaria West
- Nimble Obstructionist countering Storm triggers and Chalice triggers
So, with that said,
What are your experiences with Burn? How do you power through the matchup? Is it just bad for us?
Are there any secret tech sideboard cards that are specific to our deck?
In what matchups do you bring in Crypt vs Leyline?
I 4-0’d the Sunday Modern event at my FLGS yesterday, with another event coming up tonight. I can post a tournament report once I get home this evening.
Off the top of my head though:
2-0 vs Jeskai Restore Balance (ft. As Foretold)
2-1 vs Mardu Pyromancer
2-1 vs Bant Eldrazi
2-0 vs Grixis Shadow
So, Humans is a real deck now. Rapid Hybridization is the Dismember-variant I wanted it to be - in conjunction with our other cards we rarely take 4 from it. It should probably be a split between it and Pongify to get around Meddling Mage, but I haven't gotten around to picking up foils yet. It kills randomly problematic creatures a la Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Gaddock Teeg, and Meddling Mage.
Search for Azcanta's the real deal, I can't say how great it's been for me. I was playing Thought Scour for a while to turn it on faster, but it's good enough on its own. I've typically won (even if I haven't gone off) if I can activate it once without dying, which is pretty doable given the number of stalling tactics we have at our disposal.
I wanted to bring up another point regarding Chalice of the Void and Opt/Serum Visions - I was thinking about swapping the 1-mana cantrips out for Censor, giving you another way to cantrip at 1 mana that dodges Chalice. If your opponent plays around Censor, you just cycle it and it effectively became Remand. If they don't, you still get the option to decide if their spell is dangerous enough to let stick and can still just opt (hehe) to draw a card. Seems like an idea worth testing, although I know timewalkinonsunshine said that his singleton copy in Vegas was a mistake.
I was also looking at Tolaria West having a one-of spot in the sideboard. There are some matchups where you want to just hit land drops, and going up to 23 would be fine in those matchups, while at the same time being able to tutor either Mikokoro or a one-of sideboarded Chalice (particularly prudent against control decks like Jeskai that have relevant 1 cmc spells like Bolt and Spell Snare).
Will be trying out 2 Search for Azcanta in a local tourney soon.
Seems to do great in test games so far, filters my draws more and gives me the option to cut down on some cards due to the lategame impulse/filtering.
Anyone else tried it already?
I've been playing it over the 2 Howling Mines in my build for a little while, and I love it so far.
The card has so much play with the double optional triggers, and being able to control when it flips is a godsend. There have been multiple matches that have been decided by me being able to find a Cryptic or Exhaustion off of the transformed side, and the card allows you to be more liberal about using warps to make land drops because by the time you hit ~6-7 lands, flipping it to add an additional land to your board allows you to find that crucial something to stall the game out for that one extra turn before you can lock them down and combo off.
You know those games against Shadow where they go Thoughtseize-Snap-Thoughtsieze over and over? This card helps in those games, and not giving your opponent extra cards (or extra Stubborn Denials/Snapcasters) is huge in that matchup since they frequently see a lot of their deck anyways without our help with the Mines. It also cannot be blown up by K-Command.
I'm the happiest with my mainboard as I've been in a while against the current meta. Here is what I'm on so far:
The mainboard is relatively stock. Some things to address:
Why cut any number of Serum Visions before Opt?
I've always been more or less neutral on Serum Visions. Like Opt, its 'air' in our deck, getting us towards those key cards in our deck a bit faster. After trying out the 8-cantrip build, I found that I wanted to have more cheap countermagic in the mainboard to interact with my opponent - so I took two Visions out for Remands. The reason I kept the playset of Opt is because it plays nicer with Remand in terms of holding mana up. This leaves me with 6 cantrips in the mainboard, which means that for the most part I should have one up turn 1, which is where i want it most (for the simple reason being that I don't want my turn 1 to just be "Island, Pass"). In a deck where we're trying to stall just enough to take all the turns, taking a turn off (especially turn 1 in a particularly aggressive format) feels pretty bad, but having too many cantrips also can spell disaster because it means you're doing things like getting locked out by Chalice of the Void on 1 and spending mana to not affect the board or disrupt your opponent's gameplan in a meaningful way.
No Thing in the Ice sideboard?
Its been underperforming for me. I feel too often that its a turn too slow, or that I'm in this awkward position of wanting to cantrip but also having a Thing in hand that hasn't been cast yet. In terms of an alternate win condition, I went with Godhead of Awe to beat Shadow (can't be pushed or Stubborn Denial'd, kills off all Death's Shadows in play).
The 5c Humans deck that Collins Mullen recently piloted to 1st at the SCG Open at Cinci has also just won the SCG Modern Classic at Washington DC. If it keeps doing that we'll need to be prepared - that matchup is not very good for us with the mainboard Kitesail Freebooters and Meddling Mages paired with Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls nullifying our countermagic. Evidently that deck was all over the place at DC. The Shackles is currenly my flex spot in the board for the Humans matchup.
The rest of the playset of Remands in the board are there to close out those matchups like Tron or Scapeshift. The thing about Remand is that when its good, it feels backbreaking. We often win game 1 against those decks, and I'd rather be a 90-10 to win those matches rather than dedicate the slots to Shadow and Burn where at best it becomes a 50/50. Of those two, I picked Shadow as the deck that I wanted to beat with the Godheads in the sideboard, and Burn the deck I would just accept losing to (although with Chalice in the board, its not as bad as it used to be).
Opt has lead me to brew some janky versions of Turns that I probably won't ever play - I had a build with Opts and Thought Scours alongside a full set of Snapcasters, some Noxious Revival, and a spicy one-of Temporal Trespass that seemed good, but folds to Chalice on 1 in an Eldrazi Tron meta.
With that said, I'm going to try a direct swap of Opts for Visions, picking up my playset of Remands again and upping the Snapcaster count. I'll post a list after work today.
1-2 vs Burn
1-2 vs Bant Spirits
In the burn match his only outs were Bolt or Spike off the top (I had a multiple creatures and a flippable JVP in play with two Blessed Alliance at 5 life; he had 3 lands in play with only a Skullcrack in hand). Burn does as they do and rips a bolt.
The spirits match was interesting - he ran super hot in game 3 (double Coco, rattlechains for my path, spell queller for my blocker I was trying to hard cast through Thalia).
I’m on the way to day 2 of GP Portland with my take on UW Living End.
The story so far has been:
Bye
2-1 Tron
0-2 Grishoalbrand
2-0 Infect
0-2 UR Phoenix
2-0 Bant Spirits
2-1 Titanshift
2-0 UR Phoenix
More details to come later if I can remember.
Remorseful Cleric is more problematic because it’s a card that can be put into Spirits, which isn’t a great matchup. I feel like our standard game plan of Living End wiping the board is good enough against other creature toolbox decks that if our opponent chooses to Chord for it, isn’t that still good for us? They use a Chord to ensure that we don’t get anything back, and then they lose their board anyways. I’m more scared of my opponent floating mana for a post-Living End Collected Company.
In all of these matchups, the main problem is getting the first Living End to resolve to alleviate pressure. I’ve found that piecing together a win from there is a pretty reasonable ask.
I've been testing this list for a couple paper events - I've gone 3-1 and 4-0:
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Striped Riverwinder
4 Siren Stormtamer
3 Vendilion Clique
1 Nimble Obstructionist
Core
4 As Foretold
4 Living End
4 Ancestral Vision
Spells
4 Remand
4 Cryptic Command
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Engineered Explosives
6 Island
4 Seachrome Coast
4 Flooded Strand
3 Tolaria West
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Prairie Stream
1 Plains
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
2 Meddling Mage
2 Terminus
1 Disdainful Stroke
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Negate
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Teferi, Hero of Dominaria
Previously had been playing for about 5 weeks with 4 Spreading Seas instead of Siren Stormtamer. It comes down early as protection from burn spells (also a bad matchup), discard spells, and gives the deck additional play with it returning off Living End. There are also some decks that can't really beat it - Ad Nauseam is cold to it unless they have the Laboratory Maniac kill, and it randomly blocks against Affinity (favorably) and Infect (less so, but still pretty well - they can only get by with Blighted Agent and Apostle's Blessing).
I've cut Street Wraith for now - the life loss is non-trivial in such an aggressive meta. If KCI/Tron start to become truly dominant, I think I'd be happier putting them back in, but even then, I don't feel that the problem is that we draw cards too slowly - the problem is whether or not we can live long enough to get an As Foretold to stick. I've added a 21st land, and the Cliques/Obstructionist.
On our creature base:
I think that we really want Riverwinder and Curator. Those do the heavy lifting in many games. I've started playing more interactive elements because it allows for a) a better plan B should we not be able to find our namesake cards and b) it makes our matchups less polarizing - all of a sudden, we aren't such a dog to aggressive strategies while at the same time maintaining our cards that are very good against controlling ones. Cliques and Obstructionist have continued to impress me, and Stormtamer has been pretty good as well in my limited testing.
On the meta:
I'm of the opinion that a meta full of Jeskai is good for us, as we have many ways to grind them out and put ourselves into an advantageous position in terms of resources. I personally have not experienced any issues with the Shadow matchup - although I imagine part of that is having to do with my playing Chalice and another part of it has to do with me having a sideboard that allows me to shift into an even grindier plan that does not rely on the Living End to close a game. I have lost plenty of games to Jund though - I'm not quite sure what I want to be doing in that matchup. Humans is a coin flip - Thalia, Guardian of Thraben draws are hard to beat, Meddling Mage is only bad if they know what we're on or what to name, and Kitesail Freebooter hurts but is not the end of the world. I haven't played the KCI matchup, but I imagine that it should be fine? We play ~ 8 counterspells mainboard which should delay a resolution of Krark-Clan Ironworks long enough for us to win.
Right now I'm on a UW list that I've been happy with - although I don't find the need for cards like Glassdust Hulk. If I were going to play a cycler that wasn't Street Wraith, Curator, or Riverwinder, it would probably be Architects of Will rather than Hulk. I've also tried the black splash but Collective Brutality is the main draw there - and it's a card that doesn't quite outweigh what white can offer (although it is VERY good when it's good). I run a mainboard EE and Chalice, with the other three Chalices in the board.
I still maintain that Chalice is a very good card for our deck since it doesn't hit much (Path, if you play it), if it hits anything at all.
I played something like 100 matches in-person with my last posted build on this forum (the one with the Simian Spirit Guides and Chalices mainboard). I'll have to compile the rest of the results and the matchup percentages, but I had something like a 60% winrate in matches with the deck when I was about halfway through my notes. Keep in mind that my build has been changed for about a 4-6 weeks, so meta may have varied at that time.
Which brings me to now (and the last couple months). I've been experimenting with both the white and black splashes, and have been more happy with the white splash. I've been mixed on Path - my opinion is that its generally felt mediocre. YMMV obviously, but that's just been my own general feeling.
My current list has 3 flex spots in it right now (I'll post later), all of which are going towards testing Wall of Omens as a cycling blocker that buys us time to "go off", while also coming back to draw us more cards later. I've been theorizing about some cool sideboard tech in white like Worship or Ghostly Prison to beat aggressive decks (Prison in particular is probably pretty good against Humans, which appears to be one of the consensus worst matchups).
I've also thought about replacing the Wall of Omens with Meddling Mages mainboard, to give us some extra game against combo decks and removal-light midrange decks (GW valuetown, etc.). Getting it Path'd is completely fine, and there's a higher incentive for an opponent to Path a Meddling Mage than a Wall of Omens.
First thoughts?
I think that one of the reasons why E-Tron doesn’t play it is because it has no need for it. The deck is already playing Tron lands with Temples to accelerate their mana, and their best 1 mana play is map anyways. I’ve always thought of E-Tron as a deck that can often beat you without Chalices, it just happens to play them and sometimes score free wins off of them. I think that our deck is in the same vein, but we have more high impact plays than E-Tron does at a more consistent rate.
What I mean by this is that yes, E-Tron will sometimes Karn you on 3, but by and large, they’re playing TKS on 3. Compare this to our deck that’s built around our namesake card in As Foretold - resolving it earlier in the game gives it longer to have an impact, and we can offset the card disadvantage with the draw from our DIY Ancestral Recalls. If I had the choice between interaction and As Foretold on turn 2, I think I would take the latter every time, even against aggressive strategies, because of how strong our deck is when we have one in play.
That’s not even the entire argument for the SSGs though - that’s the beauty of it. Sometimes you DO need the interaction, or maybe the game will just be won if you resolve a Chalice on 1. Sometimes you want to resolve a vital spell before your opponent hits you with Thoughtseize or TKS. For those matchups, you get to SSG into Chalice on turn 1, and brick your opponent out of the game for a while. That kind of upside is huge, and the flexibility of the card to buy us time - not by delaying our opponent, but accelerating our game plan - is the biggest argument for it IMO. Especially with Jace coming into the format - we can SSG into Jace on 3, and brick a lot of the Abrupt Decays of the world while at the same time resolve a must-answer threat against midrange or control decks.
We don’t even have to play 4 - our deck is already fine without the acceleration, you can just put SSG into your flex spots. I don’t know if I would cut lands, because lands are still good for our deck, but there’s certainly some awkward cards that I think could be cut for it.
I suppose the argument for SSG is tied in huge part to the inclusion of Chalice in our deck - it’s not nearly as good when you’re pitching a SSG for a non-permanent that doesn’t continue to influence the game, and Chalice is about the most backbreaking 2-drop our deck can reasonably play. They aren’t vital to our game plan - they just help us put out our haymakers faster, and when we’re playing a color not at all known for accelerating the pace of the game, the surprise factor ‘gets’ people; your blue opponents can’t tap out as frequently because they have to respect that you might just have it, and your nonblue opponent have to respect even a single Island when they try to resolve their key spell (ie. Jace) only for it to be hit by SSG-Remand after you ‘tapped out’ on turn 4 to resolve an As Foretold.
I haven’t tested it yet, but the idea is continuing to linger in my mind for longer than I thought it would. Because of that reason, I thought it might warrant some discussion here, to convince myself I’m either crazy or onto something.
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
2 Nimble Obstructionist
Core
4 As Foretold
4 Living End
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Remand
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Cryptic Command
2 Supreme Will
Lands
15 Island
4 Tolaria West
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Ceremonious Rejection
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Tormod’s Crypt
2 Search for Azcanta
2 Spell Pierce
1 Echoing Truth
Took my list to the Card Kingdom 1K this past weekend. There were 7 rounds of Swiss, and I started the day with a 5-0 record, good for double ID into Top 8 as the 2 seed. I proceeded to then mulligan to 4 on the play against Abzan (I later found out that his opener that game was 3 lands, Inquisition, Thoughtseize, LotV. I lost and was sad, but at least I placed well.
I do love playing Chalices mainboard. It feels good against the fast decks (exception being Affinity, but even then Chalice on 1 locks out Galvanic Blast. We can win a lot of games off the strength of the deck’s win condition against the slower decks.
Moving forward, I’ll be cutting Obstructionist and Supreme Will completely and a single Cryptic to make room for 2 Jaces, and 3 Simian Spirit Guides. It makes me sad, since I have a soft spot for all those cards, but I think Jace is simply too strong not to play while Simian Spirit Guide can power out completely busted turns (Foretold on 2, Chalice for 1 on 1, and Jace on 3 seem really good). I also have all my games for the past month recorded in my notes along with deck archetype, and will compile them all into an easy to read data report at some point. More to come.
How do we take this deck from fringe flavor of the month to tier 1? I like to think that we can be united in trying to answer this question. I can't help but feel like for a lot of the tweaks I've made on this deck, I keep getting this 'almost there' feeling. Almost there is still not there at the end of the day.
For my part, I have a few points I primarily wanted to raise:
Spell Snares and Chalices
Spell Snare seems to be a great direction to go. 2 is a vitally important spot for a lot of decks - it also allows us to come up tempo-positive in a deck where every mana matters. It's definitely at its best on the draw, but even if you are on the play, turn 2 cycle with Snare up is a perfectly fine position to be in.
I think my main issue at the moment is that I'm not sure whether or not we could potentially be a Chalice of the Void deck. Yeah, it's not "draw go" like would be nice, but its definitely a card that a lot of decks in Modern cannot answer, especially pre-board, in a deck that can search it up with Tolaria West. You could also feasibly build around Chalice in a way that limits or completely eliminates the impact that a Chalice on 1 has on your own deck. Our deck has no need for the standard Serum Visions/Opt package that other blue decks need because of the nature of our game plan playing a bunch of 1-mana cyclers.
Of the two above points, I do tend to lean towards the Chalice plan. The downside is that it takes you away from the 1-mana spell plan, but even then, its not terrible. Eldrazi Tron still plays Expedition Map in their Chalice deck.
Cycler package
We have a few cyclers available to us, and there doesn't appear to be a consensus as to a cycler package. How many creatures/cyclers do we play? What mix of cyclers? Do we mainboard Nimble Obstructionist?
I'm of the firm opinion that Riverwinder and Curator are 4-ofs. Street Wraith is a 4-of, and the one I love the most and hate the most at the same time (see: aggro matchups). That puts us at 12 creatures, but where do we go from here? Architects of Will and Nimble Obstructionist are the two obvious choices.
I'm of the opinion that our deck wants at least 14-15 cyclers. Why? That I wouldn't be able to tell you - it feels smoother? I like drawing cards?
Street Wraith
Speaking of the love-hate with this card, how correct is it to cycle this card against aggro matchups? It feels abysmal to do it against burn, but you need to establish a clock somehow. Do you side this card out? Why? I'm not quite sure what to think about this one. I'm pretty much always cycling it regardless of the matchup, but I haven't sided it out and I'm not sure how it might affect the deck's consistency doing so. I could go either way on how to use this card both in-game as well as how it relates to sideboarding.
Tolaria West toolbox
How deep do we go (aside from the obvious fetch Living End or Ancestral Vision)? I think that the Bojuka Bog is great. EE is reasonable, but less so for mono-blue builds (if you don't have a land that produces colorless, you're not using EE to get around Chalice on 0). Pact of Negation is one that I have thought about, but then I reread the text on Obstructionist and the thought became much less good (although it would seem reasonable for certain matchups). Crypt is fine out of the board - it doesn't feel great, but the opportunity cost is pretty low.
What are your guys' thoughts?
My LGS has Modern on Sundays and Mondays - I'm going to try to start actually taking notes on paper as opposed to this Boogieboard (basically an electronic etch-and-sketch for those that don't know). I'm going to try recording the results in a spreadsheet.
Apologies for the wall of text, by the way.
Here’s my list:
4 Curator of Mysteries
4 Street Wraith
4 Striped Riverwinder
3 Nimble Obstructionist
Core
4 As Foretold
4 Living End
4 Ancestral Vision
4 Remand
4 Unsubstantiate
1 Search for Azcanta
4 Cryptic Command
Lands
15 Island
4 Tolaria West
1 Bojuka Bog
4 Chalice of the Void
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Swan Song
2 Hurkyl’s Recall
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Search for Azcanta
1 Nimble Obstructionist
The entire deck is foil - I’ve been known to play a fully-foiled out Taking Turns deck in the past.
Anyways, I was going to provide a couple tournament reports, but I got home at about midnight a couple nights back when I wanted to post them, and my memory isn’t good enough to remember all of both days of Magic. What I do remember:
- Grinding out post-board games against Lantern with Search for Azcanta and my cyclers - note that this matchup felt really good for us because we play so many problem cards for them as well as cyclers.
- Getting smashed by Burn and not feeling there was a good way out.
- Turn 3 Living End for a Curator, and winning via 5 attack steps.
- Unsubstantiate ‘countering’ creatures cast off of Cavern of Souls
- Turn 0 Leylines followed by Turn 2 Chalices
- Boarding in less than 4 ‘value’ Chalices - ones that I eventually wanted to set on 1 and 2 but had time in the matchup to search up with Tolaria West
- Nimble Obstructionist countering Storm triggers and Chalice triggers
So, with that said,
What are your experiences with Burn? How do you power through the matchup? Is it just bad for us?
Are there any secret tech sideboard cards that are specific to our deck?
In what matchups do you bring in Crypt vs Leyline?
Off the top of my head though:
2-0 vs Jeskai Restore Balance (ft. As Foretold)
2-1 vs Mardu Pyromancer
2-1 vs Bant Eldrazi
2-0 vs Grixis Shadow
Unsubstantiate is a house. More to come later.
Just thought I'd check back in after a few weeks of testing. I've moved onto this list:
4 Time Warp
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Part the Waterveil
Mines
4 Dictate of Kruphix
3 Search for Azcanta
Card Draw
4 Opt
Interaction
4 Gigadrowse
3 Exhaustion
3 Cryptic Command
4 Remand
2 Snapcaster Mage
20 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Rapid Hybridization
3 Godhead of Awe
2 Spell Snare
2 Hurkyl's Recall
1 Exhaustion
So, Humans is a real deck now. Rapid Hybridization is the Dismember-variant I wanted it to be - in conjunction with our other cards we rarely take 4 from it. It should probably be a split between it and Pongify to get around Meddling Mage, but I haven't gotten around to picking up foils yet. It kills randomly problematic creatures a la Thalia, Guardian of Thraben, Gaddock Teeg, and Meddling Mage.
Search for Azcanta's the real deal, I can't say how great it's been for me. I was playing Thought Scour for a while to turn it on faster, but it's good enough on its own. I've typically won (even if I haven't gone off) if I can activate it once without dying, which is pretty doable given the number of stalling tactics we have at our disposal.
I wanted to bring up another point regarding Chalice of the Void and Opt/Serum Visions - I was thinking about swapping the 1-mana cantrips out for Censor, giving you another way to cantrip at 1 mana that dodges Chalice. If your opponent plays around Censor, you just cycle it and it effectively became Remand. If they don't, you still get the option to decide if their spell is dangerous enough to let stick and can still just opt (hehe) to draw a card. Seems like an idea worth testing, although I know timewalkinonsunshine said that his singleton copy in Vegas was a mistake.
I was also looking at Tolaria West having a one-of spot in the sideboard. There are some matchups where you want to just hit land drops, and going up to 23 would be fine in those matchups, while at the same time being able to tutor either Mikokoro or a one-of sideboarded Chalice (particularly prudent against control decks like Jeskai that have relevant 1 cmc spells like Bolt and Spell Snare).
Just thought I'd raise some points.
I've been playing it over the 2 Howling Mines in my build for a little while, and I love it so far.
The card has so much play with the double optional triggers, and being able to control when it flips is a godsend. There have been multiple matches that have been decided by me being able to find a Cryptic or Exhaustion off of the transformed side, and the card allows you to be more liberal about using warps to make land drops because by the time you hit ~6-7 lands, flipping it to add an additional land to your board allows you to find that crucial something to stall the game out for that one extra turn before you can lock them down and combo off.
You know those games against Shadow where they go Thoughtseize-Snap-Thoughtsieze over and over? This card helps in those games, and not giving your opponent extra cards (or extra Stubborn Denials/Snapcasters) is huge in that matchup since they frequently see a lot of their deck anyways without our help with the Mines. It also cannot be blown up by K-Command.
I'm the happiest with my mainboard as I've been in a while against the current meta. Here is what I'm on so far:
4 Time Warp
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Part the Waterveil
Mines
4 Dictate of Kruphix
2 Search for Azcanta
Card Draw
4 Opt
2 Serum Visions
4 Gigadrowse
4 Exhaustion
3 Cryptic Command
2 Remand
2 Snapcaster Mage
Lands
20 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Inkmoth Nexus
4 Chalice of the Void
3 Godhead of Awe
2 Spell Snare
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Remand
2 Vedalken Shackles
The mainboard is relatively stock. Some things to address:
Why cut any number of Serum Visions before Opt?
I've always been more or less neutral on Serum Visions. Like Opt, its 'air' in our deck, getting us towards those key cards in our deck a bit faster. After trying out the 8-cantrip build, I found that I wanted to have more cheap countermagic in the mainboard to interact with my opponent - so I took two Visions out for Remands. The reason I kept the playset of Opt is because it plays nicer with Remand in terms of holding mana up. This leaves me with 6 cantrips in the mainboard, which means that for the most part I should have one up turn 1, which is where i want it most (for the simple reason being that I don't want my turn 1 to just be "Island, Pass"). In a deck where we're trying to stall just enough to take all the turns, taking a turn off (especially turn 1 in a particularly aggressive format) feels pretty bad, but having too many cantrips also can spell disaster because it means you're doing things like getting locked out by Chalice of the Void on 1 and spending mana to not affect the board or disrupt your opponent's gameplan in a meaningful way.
No Thing in the Ice sideboard?
Its been underperforming for me. I feel too often that its a turn too slow, or that I'm in this awkward position of wanting to cantrip but also having a Thing in hand that hasn't been cast yet. In terms of an alternate win condition, I went with Godhead of Awe to beat Shadow (can't be pushed or Stubborn Denial'd, kills off all Death's Shadows in play).
The 5c Humans deck that Collins Mullen recently piloted to 1st at the SCG Open at Cinci has also just won the SCG Modern Classic at Washington DC. If it keeps doing that we'll need to be prepared - that matchup is not very good for us with the mainboard Kitesail Freebooters and Meddling Mages paired with Aether Vial and Cavern of Souls nullifying our countermagic. Evidently that deck was all over the place at DC. The Shackles is currenly my flex spot in the board for the Humans matchup.
The rest of the playset of Remands in the board are there to close out those matchups like Tron or Scapeshift. The thing about Remand is that when its good, it feels backbreaking. We often win game 1 against those decks, and I'd rather be a 90-10 to win those matches rather than dedicate the slots to Shadow and Burn where at best it becomes a 50/50. Of those two, I picked Shadow as the deck that I wanted to beat with the Godheads in the sideboard, and Burn the deck I would just accept losing to (although with Chalice in the board, its not as bad as it used to be).
4 Time Warp
4 Temporal Mastery
3 Part the Waterveil
Mines
4 Dictate of Kruphix
Card Draw
4 Opt
4 Remand
3 Cryptic Command
4 Gigadrowse
4 Exhaustion
3 Snapcaster Mage
Lands
20 Island
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Gemstone Caverns
1 Inkmoth Nexus
3 Thing in the Ice
2 Spell Snare
2 Spellskite
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Shadow of Doubt
2 Ceremonious Rejection
I'll probably end up putting the Howling Mines back in, but I figured I'd give this a shot for a bit.
With that said, I'm going to try a direct swap of Opts for Visions, picking up my playset of Remands again and upping the Snapcaster count. I'll post a list after work today.