"maze of ith" esque effect spoiled on an artifact in ixalan. I think it´s fairly playable actually thaumatic compass. Powering out lands with explore like effects could make this a pretty strong card. It´s not that expensive actually, can tutor basics which of course is nice, and the transform has no cost.
also dunes of the dead COULD be a interesting card to play if there were a way to sac it and rerturn it to play somehow.
I´ve got a modern pptq tomorrow that i´ll be playing, and it´s 2 am right now, but i´m certainly going to NOT go to sleep, until i´m done with responding this the best i can.
Round 1
Game 1 i mull aggresively to a very strong 5. I´m able to loot into dredger and another looting, and basically run him over fairly quickly. Game 2 my opponent went to 5, he thoughtsiezed my looting which wrecked me, but i draw another looting. Set up my turn 2, until my opponent plays grafdiggers cage. At this poing i started drawing and casting my imps, drawing and casting my thugs just to get them killed so that i could put amalgams on top of the deck, so to cast them (thanks to mana confluence). My opponent drew no creatures, lands maelstrom pulse, abrupt decay werent enough
Round 2
Game 1 my opponet mulls to 4. I almost lost. Ended up milling 4 amalgams and noticed i could block the 7/7 trampling, first striking lifelinker with totem armor on the other side of the table, with all of my creautres (almost forgot i could block with everything, my opponent certainly didn´t expect it, since he didn´t attack anymore). Attacked for about 60 with a rally the pesants which my opponent didn´t see. Game 2 my opponent t1 dude, i turn 1 thoughtsieze to see, 5 lands, rest in peace, that was basically it.
Round 3
My opponent receives a game loss for an incorrect list. I´m feeling pretty good at this point. My opponent is really unhappy throughout the whole game 1. I end up at 4 with him at 8. He then passes the turn to me, i have a narcomoeba and a prized amalgam with a rally the peasants in the yard.
I think for a while and noticed i probably would be dead if he could kill me. So i attack with everything and cast the rally. Only then he notices that i´m at 4 (because he´s not writing the life totals) and that he has a boros charm in hand, which makes me slam the table. Burn players... jeez. G2 i mull to 5 with a mana confluence which is ok. I missed 2 land drops but my opponent didn´t do much. Eventually i drew the land and my collective brutality, discard and drain, see 2 lands and 2 searing blaze. I´m able to play around it, flash back a gnaw to the bone for 10 lives and that seals the deal.
Round 4 id
Round 5
Won the die roll and ran him over, not that much he could do. For game 2, i thought of removing all the conflagrates (more on this later), but left one. He cast relic on turn 1, but fortunately i could get some creatures before it was too late. He later cast another relic and on my turn i decided to gain 6 life with a gnaw to the bone from the hand. He cracked 1 relic on his follwing turn, and so i was out of gas. Had to start casting my imps and amalgams again. Put him down to 2 and forced him to crack the last relic by plaing a land with a fetchland already in play (which would return my bloodghast to trigger an amalgam): i play land, he taps relic, i crack fetch he exiles everything. I then hardcast a 5 mana conflartae to win.
Round 6
Can´t remember that much about this game, except that he strip mined my 2nd land, and that i played with 1 land the rest of the game (until i decided to dredge back a dakmor salvage). Darkblast was super important here, becase it helped kill restoration angel and 3/2 thalia,
as well as blade splicers and flickerwisps. Game 2 i don´t remember what happened, except that i forgot a vengeful pharaoh trigger that i should have,
and that later on i remembered, and it was amazing, killed a 2/1 thalia and i think 2 more creatures. Won by conflagrating to sweep the board.
TOP 8
I´m 1st seed. On the play, all the way.
Same opponent. Game 1 was intense. I mulled to 5 and got to a slow start, wasn´t able to keep up with the blade splicer golems.
I think i played well, not attacking with my narcomeba into 4 open mana (he flashed restoration angel EOT), fetching in my turn before exposing myself to leonin arbiter...details. Still i fot into a position where i needed to block 2 fliers and couldn´t, maybe i took too much damage from the tokens. I valued my fliers a lot .Game 2 i thoughtsize t1 to remove a relic, and basically took it from there. Game 3 i´m on the draw, and i decide to NOT play thoughtsieze. My thinking is that if he´s got the relic or cage, he´s going to play it t1, un-thoughtseizable, and that´s almost all i care about, since conflagrate helps me with the board, and i already have natures claim for the vials and the hate anyways. He mulls to 5 i think, and starts slow. I made a missplay when i milled a narcomoeba and my opponent didn´t crack the relic he had found. I expected him to crack it and he didn´t, and i totally forgot about the amoeba! The game ended in a complicated turn in which i milled a lethal conflagrate but didn´t cast it, i was looking for more bloodgasts, was thinking a bit too much maybe. There is no excuse for giving my opponent another turn, i just didn´t notice i could win right there. I had him on the following turn anyways.
Game 1. I knew my opponent was playing shadow. My hand was "great" (against t1 thoughtsieze), 1 narcomobas 1 bloodghast 1 shriekhorn 1 thug + lands. Being on the play ment my enabler got down before he could strip it. He thoughtsized and had to take the amoeba, i mill another amobea and on my upkeep i mill and hit a haunted dead. The rest of the game was me chumping tasigur with haunted dead and hitting with 2+ flyers per turn. He had to attack with the tasigur, becasue otherwise he couldn´t do anything, which was fine for me. Game 2, he doens´t thoughtseize me but i do, i take his surgical extraction and see a deaths shadow and a kozileks return, amongst others. I get to the point where i have 2 shriekhorns in play 2 amoebas, 1 amalgam 1 ghast and 1 thug in play and one in hand, and my opponent has death shadow in play. I noticed i can mill my amoebas AFTER putting them on top of my library when the thug dies (i knew i could do that, but i noticed i could do it to block a death shadow). I play the 2nd thug and attack, my opponent kozileks return, i put the amoebas on top. He then attacks, i mill, and my opponent has the option of snapcaster + surgical on the amoeba or on the ghast. He chooses the amoeba and hits me down to 7 or something. on my turn i dredge like crazy and flashback looting trying to hit more bloodghasts, which i do, and then proceed to attack for leathal the turn after. He needed to have double removal not to die, and he didn´t.
Game 1 was gross. I had 3 amoebas and 3 amalgams by turn 3 after going looting + rehunion. He blocks well, but eats a rally the peasants for a billion.
Game 2 was a lot more complicated. He goest t1 bird, and i t1 darkblast (best feeling ever). Eventually i flip 2 amoebas and he plays pia and kiran nalaar. I noticed he witnessed a fetchland to his hand, which ended up meaning he didn´t have many lands. The plan here was to kill as many creatures as possible becasue i wanted to choke him so as to not allow him to chord me (eventually he would be 1 mana away from chording a kiki for the win, later on), soooo i attacked into the 2 thopters and traded. At some point he cast loaming shaman, which put everything but my amoebas back in the library. Had me casting my imps and had me natural drawing. He was still choked on mana but managed to restoration angel the loaming shaman again.
On the final turns i had attacked enough times with the imps, and had found a life from the loam (which i had to cast with 0 targets, which if fine)
and had re started the engine. He EOT chords for a witness and returns the chord to his hand. He now has 7 "chord" mana. Draws and whiffs on a land.
I then dredge until i have only 6 or 7 cards in hand, in search of hasty bloodghasts. I attack with everything and have enough conflagrate to win.
He tutos up a scavengin ooze, exiles a creature and paths another and i still deal exactly enough to him.
On the sideboard. It´s a bit all over the place. I go by the general rule: enabler for enabler, dredger for dredger, flashback for flashback. If i´m cutting cards outside of that, i´m generally cutting rally the peasants (will probably take it out all together, i also don´t love it on the draw against agressive decks) 1 loam (playing 3 loam is absolutely fine) or 1 bloodghast (against creature decks taking 1 out is ok i think).
Don´t play 1 collective brutality. It´s really really good. I had 3 and sold 2 when i "almost gave up on the deck". It´s a must have aginst burn and things like scapeshift and ad nauseam. I think 2 is the minimum.
The gnaw to the bone is just super good against burn. The fact that it´s instant speed means you NEVER have to tap out unless they do. If you´ve got more power than them, in play, eventually they have to play a spell (usually 1 per turn, it´s a bit more complicated if they have 4 mana becasue they can always skullckrak or ataraks command to prevent you from gaining life) and that´s when you just slam it down. They´re usually swoppable with the conflagrates. Basic dredge= enablers for enablers, dredgers for dredgers, flashbackers for flashbackers.
Lightning axe. Not excessive at all. You want to kill death shadows, tasigur, scavengin ooze, goblin electromancer or baral. I´ve always played 3, always loved them. They´re for problematic creatures, big creatres and super fast creatures. It´s to have some interaction, i´d think most list are playing 3 anyways.
Pharaoh was really really good. It was sort of a "free surprise removal spell". The last few times i played it, i had been "locked" into drawing it by my opponent, which made me rethink playing it again, but after what it did in the death and taxes game... i think not. I might even bring it in against burn. You´ve always got to have the dredge option, otherwise it´s not good at all, but i think it´s a great sideboard card. Plus, i´m playing the horn, so i can suprise mill it. I usually brought it in against death shadow... but getting hit for 5-9 by 1 creature, is sketchy. It´s best against things like maybe midrange craetures and probably eldrazi. Because the our creatures rearly block well, i think having it as a free kill spell is nice.
Anyways, that´s basically what the tournament looked like. I over simplified of course. There where plenty of turn in which i had to think wether to dredge of draw, what i could mill, when to activate the shriekhorn, when to stop dredging...etc etc. There were a lot of complicated turns, but everything went out pretty smoothly.
I loved playing it. I also LOVED dredging a loam late game, casting it and then flash backing a looting to keep 2 cards in hand (one of which was a loam) which i cast again. From a 0 card hand to a potential x=9 conflagrate in 2 turns, felt great.
I´m not sure the report was of much use. I was lucky, i was able to stip hate on some crucial turns, i´m familiar with the deck, i played farily well and i know when to mull and what to keep. If you have any more questions, i´m glad to help out in anyway i can. Cheers
Shriekhorns are, i feel, just better than the neonates. Might be wrong to play them, but i like the added benefit of being able to flip amoebas mid combat, mill additional prized amalgams after certain triggers or surprise mill my opponent after they serum visions or scry with a mulligan. it "feels" a bit more explosive than neonate. Against a deaths shadow opponent who cast Kozilek's Return, i was able to mill 2 amoebas after putting them both on top of my library with 2 thugs who had died, so as to block the death shadow, which was nice.
19 lands is ok i feel, haven´t had any issues, as long as you can hit 2 lands. This deck NEEDS minimum of 2 lands to play, 1 of which has to be able to produce green, for loam, which is absolutely essential for the deck to work as you might know. You can keep 1 mountain + looting, for this reason. I have mulled to 5, 4 multiple times, (and even 3 once) and have won easily following that rule.
On confluence. Could be gemstone mine? It´s really up to you, i would have played blackcleave cliffs maybe, if i had any. Life loss to confluence are only REALLY relevant against burn (for which i should have more collective brutality in the sideboard). It´s just an additional source of green for early game, you don´t use it later on that much.
oh jeez. How awesome is this?! Been wanting to build bridge versions with tymaret, the murder king, and things like Akuta, born of ash for a while. I think endless obedience is a great card. Closest thing to dread return there is. I hope this gets somewhere, although it´s probably too broken for modern if it ever became good enough
Took down a 45 man tounrament yesterday, going 9-0-1 (draw being intentional). After almost giving up on the deck, because of how badly it was performing, i came back to the primere here (to look at the lists), only to realized i was playing fewer dredgers than needed (gotta have around 900 games with this deck, should have noticed before :/). All in all, still solid deck, sad i misjudged it . Keep it up guys!
Hey guys. I´ve been toying around with a list close to these last ones, and i like it a lot. It was pretty unbeleievable how some people consiedered grim flayer not to be an automatic 4 of in these types of decks. Its not the best threat, since there´s a lot of goyfs, tasigurs, anglers and death´s shadows running around, but it´s an incredible threat on it´s own, and the ability is really really good.
I originally palyed 4 color gifts, but then decided to sell every modern staple, fetchlands, snapcasters, lotV...you name it; but at the end of the day there was only one single card i missed, and that was liliana of the veil. As a result, i decided to buy them back, and build a deck that played just a bunch of good cards.
A few things. I actually like gnarlwood dryad as a metagame call. It´s kinda tough to deal with tasigur, angler and shadow... so having a tutorable road block is pretty good. It´s also really really good against burn. It trades off early, and eats dudes later on. It´s bascially a modern version of nimble mongoose, if you think of this deck as a "legacy tempo deck"... of sorts. Cheap threat that kicks ass late game. I was laughed at for playing this, but not dealing with it, and having to deal with literally every other permanent this deck can put out(except maybe snapcaster mage), means that it itself, becomes a threat. It´s a cool card
I like courser. Tough to kill, not fatal pushable, an enchantment/creature for delirium, synergizes with grim flayer and jace... just good. Maybe 3 is too much, but i think the card is great.
That´s another thing, the cards are all great. They´re great cards on their own. Kind of like jund. BUT, there is a lot of synergy here. I´ve +1 of liliana, the last hope on an obstinate baloth, hit with a 4/4 flayer, to mill a thoughtseize and flash it back with jace to strip my opponent off of his primeval titan. All around just a lot of synergy: jace+courser, courser+flayer, flayer+jace.
Just like jund, every threat is a must kill (maybe not the snapcaster or the dryads, i´m only playing 2 of the latter), and that is awesome. I like calling this deck "blue-jund". The cards are just good. I´ve lost to burn once, and affinity once too, because of a mistake, but i´ve also 5-0´d a tournament at my LGS, beating jeskai delver, eldrazi tron, 8 rack, UW control and jund deaths shadow.
The mana base could be better (and should), the sideboard is a mess (i don´t own any big game hunters, which i should be playing), i don´t think scavenging ooze is a md card, might switch it for somehting else. Other cards i like are: hangarback walker, Kalitas, traitor of ghet,thrun, the last troll. All which i should consider. Maybe hangarback walker instead of scavenging ooze? Ooze seems matchup dependent, not something i´m fond of. Mishra's Bauble i probably wouldn´t play even if i had. I like the 19 land 4 bauble 4 traverse, but i think it´s fine without the baubles honestly.
Real simple question. As with every new set, i´m really curious to know what cards you played that you think weren´t worth it and which you just couldn´t get enough of. So basically what was great, what wasn´t what you hoped for, how good the gods were o weren´t, which cards you felt were limited gold, which could be constructed sleepers, etc etc.
I didn´t play the prerelease myself, but would love to hear what you thought about it all!
On scrapyard scrounger. I think it´s a very good card. Under hate it´s a really good creature. 3/2 for 2 is whicked good. No color requirements, unlike amalgam, it´s a nice way to trigger amalgams back. Seems fine for "slower" builds, where you can spend 2 mana more often. It´s still maybe a bit too tough to get 2 free mana. Usually you´re using most of it for more important things. Generally: t1 enabler t2 enabler or loam, t3 flashback looting or loam + land, t4 loam +land +conflagrate. Maybe later on in the game? I think i´d still rather have haunted dead, but 1-2 might be ok.
Really, it all comes down to what you want to do i think. The shell is still the shell. Bloodghast+amalgam+amoeba,dredgers and enablers is the core anyways, and it works great. If you want to try something out, but no one has or the winning lists don´t use it, just do it, as long as the core is intact.
Bridges were good for me because i knew most people would forget it, not understand it, run into it etc etc, which would give me an edge, after all a win is a win. I was expecting lots of creatures, bolts and other targeted removal.
The "it´s a dead card in your hand" clause is pretty dumb i think. Half the deck you already don´t want to draw almost EVER. Of course, this adds an additional 4 cards that "don´t want to be in your hand ever", but proportionally "dredge-land-enablers" are still the same, allowing it to function well. Also, the upside for having them is pretty radical in creature matches (improves our burn matchup a LOT i believe)
The theory is usually NOT what it´s like in the practice. Practice points out that our blockers are terrible. If you need to block an infect creature with an amoeba, you´d love to get 1-2 free 2/2´s out of it. Practice also shows that once you flip over an amoeba and a bridge (equally as likely to flip an amalgam as well), burn can´t really attack anymore. Your 1 blocker now becomes 2, eventually you´ll attack with tradeable creatures like bloodghast, which also trigger bridges, and it´s hard to beat you by then.
If your opponent burns his own creature...you´re more than happy. It´s a 2 for 0. For ZERO cards.That´s a pretty terrible play i believe. Also, how likely is it to have 4 amalgams in your yard? Equally as likely to have 4 bridges, they won´t exile completely that often. So, if you flip creatures and a bridge they either attack and you get to trade creatures or make zombies, or they don´t attack, you keep doing what you do, and force them to play burn spells one a turn. If they don´t attack, you still have to kill them, which is somewhat tough, now, g1 you´ll mill over a conflagrate if you stall out, allowing you to pressure them. Game 2, those will be gnaw to the bone, which are even more backbreaking, since now they can´t tap out.
The idea behind just "value bridges" is making combat a living hell against our toughest matches. Without bridges, sometimes there is no reason to attack with a bloodghast, since the creature on the other side is bigger. Bridge kind of gives you something to do with that attack. it lets you attack a lot more freely, plus you don´t HAVE to get value off of them, play accordingly. Additionally, it "kind of" evades grafdiggers cage, as long as you have creatures, Neonate becomes a "trick" and worth 2-3 bodies, and scavenging ooze becomes a joke. What are they going to do? Exile dredgers most likely and block the bloodghasts and amalgams, but with 1-2 bridges out...you completely overload the ooze, that´s just how it turns out.
I wanted to hand in my report as well. Obviously not on the same scale as #dinausorus... but just in case you guys wanted a read.
So, the day after wmcq # 2, i decided to start with dredge. Had little over a month to get it done. Got the cards, tested on my own, read the meta here fairly correctly.
Eventually, and before the wmcq#3:
Got 500 games under my belt with various lists. Losing to aggressive mulligan, scapeshift, tron and the occasional rest in peace/cage.
No one here was playing dredge. Very little hate. No one would get the cards in time even if they concluded it was the best deck. No one knows what bridge from below does.
Lots of burn/affinity. Little to no combo.
Everybody thought i was playing something i wasn´t (we know each other pretty well as we are few)
Game Mull to 3 on the play. Ended up winning anyways thanks to the bridges... and that i´m playing against living end.
Game 2 i get him down to 2 life after an attack. Ended up thinking of whether or to conflagrate him for the win or gnaw to the bone to keep myself alive for the next turn. I gnaw and he jund charms my grave in response. He later told me he would have pyroclasmed, but he noticed he could exile the grave instead. a)Gave him too much time, b) Should have gone for the win, not to try not to lose c)Playing around ricochet trap without having shown a conflagrate game 1 against 4 mana open seems dumb, and d) Gnaw to the bone is probably not even that good anyways.
Game 3 i rebord the congflags, have 2 enablers + ggt and race him before he found the 3rd land to living end me (possibly for the win)
Round 2- Burn
This guy had no clue what was going on. None. Unfortunately for him i knew he was playing burn, so fetched appropriately
Game 1 he thinks whether to keep or not, decides to keep. T1 guide T2 guide guide. I get an early haunted dead, bridges and narcos. He is about to burn me out and i decide to attack with everyhing, he trades incorrectly and doesn´t draw well, and my creatures get the job done.
Game 2 he starts with wild nacatl. I loot and pass. He plays double swift spear. On my turn i dredge and loot, to get 3 narcos 1 bloodghast 2 amalgam and 2 bridges. On his turn he attacks me, i block 1 on 1 each creature. He for some reason uses his pump spells THEN and there, for whatever reason. I end up putting 6 2/2´s and smashing back for 20 against a tapped opponent.
Round 3- Melira
Game1 we both go to 5 cards, i dredge like crazy, conflag 4 mana dorks and win.
Game2 I can´t remember a thing. He decided to combo me on upkeep when i was about to dredge back a darkblast. Had i had a lightning axe, i might have gotten away with it. Would have won with an attack on my turn
Game 3 He hits melira and finks, and that kind of messes things up a bit. However i get him to low cards and life and have a darkblast in hand. He assembles combo with 1 mana to spare, i darkblast the seer, and he chords up the third one in response.
Round 4- Eldrazi
Game1 I start out real slow but escalate quickly, he basically couldn´t stabilize. Bridge did a lot of work, as was ment to do.
Game2 He mulled to 5 got a bit mana screwed. I got real fancy conflagrating my bloodghasts, casting stinkweed imps (that´s pretty fancy :p) and eventually beat him.
Round 5- Taxes
Game 1 i ran him over. He got out a blade splicer, blinked it with flickerwisp and also a brimaz. I was able to conflag the brimaz and wisp and get him down to 0 almost without too much trouble.
Game 2 He didn´t t2 rest in peace me. I had looted in a way that that wouldn´t hurt that much. I decided to thoughtseize just in case. Coast was clear, his hand was double wisp double finks. A few turns later i had a pretty good board. Rest in peace came in but he was already at 4 life, i attacked with the team and traded an amalagam for a finks, which didn´t return (i missed that, someone outside pointed it our). Cast a stinkweed imp and had 2 amoebas and an imp coming in for lethal.
Round 6- Burn
I was in 3rth seat so i decided to draw into the top 8 (yay)
TOP 8
Burn
Game 1 He was on the play. I kind of didn´t have much pressure. I had to conflagrate to get rid of the board and taking him to 10, playing a land and smashing with 1 bloodghast. He had a few cards and i was at 1 life, so his topdeck killed me.
Game 2 I start out fetching carefully but dredging not that much. Eventually i was at a pretty low life, staring a pair of suspended rift bolts but my opponent tapped. I HAD to draw a third land, otherwise it would be likely i lost. Thankfully copperline gorges are my friends. Got 10 life that moment in response to my 2 bloodghast triggers and ended up winning.
Game 3 My opponent got stuck on 2 lands, while i dredge up amalgams and amoebas. Eventually i had him on a 2 turn clock when i flipped my 3rd amoeba, so i decided to leave it there since there was a gnaw in the grave. My opponent boros chams me, i gain 6 in response, and he concedes on his turn.
Melira.
Same person as in the swiss... Every game, basically the same. Was a turn away from winning, and he finds 2/3 combo with the company. Game 2, was a turn away from winning again, and he chords for the seer with a melira he found with a company, the finks he drew, and the chord he had in his hand.
---
The deck was great. I kind of wish i had collective brutallity (i coulnd´t get so i tested without) to kill those stupid melira.
19 Land is and has always been fine with MINIMUM 2 loams.
I used to board out loams when i boarded out conflags, but then stopped (not that i lost that many games where i boarded it out, i just didn´t want to risk it) because loam is so so so important it´s not even fun.
Brige from below. So. This card is what makes game 1 against burn "winnable" and makes Thought-Knot seer look like a pile of crap. It makes creature matchups super lop sided, and it has the added benefit of "maybe my opponent screws up". After practicing a TONNE with it, i ended up cutting 1 haunted dead for a conflag (from 2 dead to 1) which with 4 bridges in the deck, is a mistake. Discarding a bridge "on command" gives you a "surprise factor" that makes the card a lot better. I would have wanted 2 dead and i knew it, but it was really tough to take something out so i didn´t (mainly because i would have wanted another land too, just in case).
The sideboard was ok but it´s meta dependent. Most likely in an open meta, natures claim is probably fairly important.. You just want a clear answer to their answer. Explosives is ok, but sometimes it takes 2 WHOLE turns to get anything done, it´s a bit slow. There is probably not that much burn in other places, so 1 gnaw could be okay. I guess collective brutality is a must now a days right?
just like @dinausorus (congrats by the way!!!), i also lost in the top 4 of my wmcq. Although mine was sixty-some people and only 6 rounds. Meta is pretty defined and predictable, we all know each other and what we´re playing. I knew coming in that there would be almost no copies of dredge, since cards are tough to get, and therefor also almost no hate. Practiced around 500 games on xmage, which payed off as well. People misplayed, sideboarded and kept incorrectly, triggered my bridges for free etc etc. Still lost to melira combo in between rounds and in the top 4 to the same person.
Beat living end (first game of the turnament on a mull to 3 on the play), hatebears, burn, and bant eldrazi. Beat burn in the top 8 and then lost to melira.
Just hands down the best deck name ever, if it made it.
also dunes of the dead COULD be a interesting card to play if there were a way to sac it and rerturn it to play somehow.
For reference
4 Bloodghast
1 Haunted dead
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
Spells
4 Cathartic Reunion
4 Shriekhorn
2 Conflagrate
1 Darkblast
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
1 Lightning Axe
1 Rally the Peasants
2 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Mana Confluence
2 Mountain
2 Dakmor Salvage
2 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Collective Brutality
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Lightning Axe
3 Nature's Claim
3 Thoughtseize
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Darkblast
I´ve got a modern pptq tomorrow that i´ll be playing, and it´s 2 am right now, but i´m certainly going to NOT go to sleep, until i´m done with responding this the best i can.
Round 1
Round 2
Round 3
I think for a while and noticed i probably would be dead if he could kill me. So i attack with everything and cast the rally. Only then he notices that i´m at 4 (because he´s not writing the life totals) and that he has a boros charm in hand, which makes me slam the table. Burn players... jeez. G2 i mull to 5 with a mana confluence which is ok. I missed 2 land drops but my opponent didn´t do much. Eventually i drew the land and my collective brutality, discard and drain, see 2 lands and 2 searing blaze. I´m able to play around it, flash back a gnaw to the bone for 10 lives and that seals the deal.
Round 4 id
Round 5
Round 6
as well as blade splicers and flickerwisps. Game 2 i don´t remember what happened, except that i forgot a vengeful pharaoh trigger that i should have,
and that later on i remembered, and it was amazing, killed a 2/1 thalia and i think 2 more creatures. Won by conflagrating to sweep the board.
TOP 8
I´m 1st seed. On the play, all the way.
I think i played well, not attacking with my narcomeba into 4 open mana (he flashed restoration angel EOT), fetching in my turn before exposing myself to leonin arbiter...details. Still i fot into a position where i needed to block 2 fliers and couldn´t, maybe i took too much damage from the tokens. I valued my fliers a lot .Game 2 i thoughtsize t1 to remove a relic, and basically took it from there. Game 3 i´m on the draw, and i decide to NOT play thoughtsieze. My thinking is that if he´s got the relic or cage, he´s going to play it t1, un-thoughtseizable, and that´s almost all i care about, since conflagrate helps me with the board, and i already have natures claim for the vials and the hate anyways. He mulls to 5 i think, and starts slow. I made a missplay when i milled a narcomoeba and my opponent didn´t crack the relic he had found. I expected him to crack it and he didn´t, and i totally forgot about the amoeba! The game ended in a complicated turn in which i milled a lethal conflagrate but didn´t cast it, i was looking for more bloodgasts, was thinking a bit too much maybe. There is no excuse for giving my opponent another turn, i just didn´t notice i could win right there. I had him on the following turn anyways.
Game 2 was a lot more complicated. He goest t1 bird, and i t1 darkblast (best feeling ever). Eventually i flip 2 amoebas and he plays pia and kiran nalaar. I noticed he witnessed a fetchland to his hand, which ended up meaning he didn´t have many lands. The plan here was to kill as many creatures as possible becasue i wanted to choke him so as to not allow him to chord me (eventually he would be 1 mana away from chording a kiki for the win, later on), soooo i attacked into the 2 thopters and traded. At some point he cast loaming shaman, which put everything but my amoebas back in the library. Had me casting my imps and had me natural drawing. He was still choked on mana but managed to restoration angel the loaming shaman again.
On the final turns i had attacked enough times with the imps, and had found a life from the loam (which i had to cast with 0 targets, which if fine)
and had re started the engine. He EOT chords for a witness and returns the chord to his hand. He now has 7 "chord" mana. Draws and whiffs on a land.
I then dredge until i have only 6 or 7 cards in hand, in search of hasty bloodghasts. I attack with everything and have enough conflagrate to win.
He tutos up a scavengin ooze, exiles a creature and paths another and i still deal exactly enough to him.
On the sideboard. It´s a bit all over the place. I go by the general rule: enabler for enabler, dredger for dredger, flashback for flashback. If i´m cutting cards outside of that, i´m generally cutting rally the peasants (will probably take it out all together, i also don´t love it on the draw against agressive decks) 1 loam (playing 3 loam is absolutely fine) or 1 bloodghast (against creature decks taking 1 out is ok i think).
Don´t play 1 collective brutality. It´s really really good. I had 3 and sold 2 when i "almost gave up on the deck". It´s a must have aginst burn and things like scapeshift and ad nauseam. I think 2 is the minimum.
The gnaw to the bone is just super good against burn. The fact that it´s instant speed means you NEVER have to tap out unless they do. If you´ve got more power than them, in play, eventually they have to play a spell (usually 1 per turn, it´s a bit more complicated if they have 4 mana becasue they can always skullckrak or ataraks command to prevent you from gaining life) and that´s when you just slam it down. They´re usually swoppable with the conflagrates. Basic dredge= enablers for enablers, dredgers for dredgers, flashbackers for flashbackers.
Lightning axe. Not excessive at all. You want to kill death shadows, tasigur, scavengin ooze, goblin electromancer or baral. I´ve always played 3, always loved them. They´re for problematic creatures, big creatres and super fast creatures. It´s to have some interaction, i´d think most list are playing 3 anyways.
Pharaoh was really really good. It was sort of a "free surprise removal spell". The last few times i played it, i had been "locked" into drawing it by my opponent, which made me rethink playing it again, but after what it did in the death and taxes game... i think not. I might even bring it in against burn. You´ve always got to have the dredge option, otherwise it´s not good at all, but i think it´s a great sideboard card. Plus, i´m playing the horn, so i can suprise mill it. I usually brought it in against death shadow... but getting hit for 5-9 by 1 creature, is sketchy. It´s best against things like maybe midrange craetures and probably eldrazi. Because the our creatures rearly block well, i think having it as a free kill spell is nice.
Anyways, that´s basically what the tournament looked like. I over simplified of course. There where plenty of turn in which i had to think wether to dredge of draw, what i could mill, when to activate the shriekhorn, when to stop dredging...etc etc. There were a lot of complicated turns, but everything went out pretty smoothly.
I loved playing it. I also LOVED dredging a loam late game, casting it and then flash backing a looting to keep 2 cards in hand (one of which was a loam) which i cast again. From a 0 card hand to a potential x=9 conflagrate in 2 turns, felt great.
I´m not sure the report was of much use. I was lucky, i was able to stip hate on some crucial turns, i´m familiar with the deck, i played farily well and i know when to mull and what to keep. If you have any more questions, i´m glad to help out in anyway i can. Cheers
19 lands is ok i feel, haven´t had any issues, as long as you can hit 2 lands. This deck NEEDS minimum of 2 lands to play, 1 of which has to be able to produce green, for loam, which is absolutely essential for the deck to work as you might know. You can keep 1 mountain + looting, for this reason. I have mulled to 5, 4 multiple times, (and even 3 once) and have won easily following that rule.
On confluence. Could be gemstone mine? It´s really up to you, i would have played blackcleave cliffs maybe, if i had any. Life loss to confluence are only REALLY relevant against burn (for which i should have more collective brutality in the sideboard). It´s just an additional source of green for early game, you don´t use it later on that much.
4 Bloodghast
1 Haunted dead
3 Golgari Thug
4 Narcomoeba
4 Prized Amalgam
4 Stinkweed Imp
Spells
4 Cathartic Reunion
4 Shriekhorn
2 Conflagrate
1 Darkblast
4 Faithless Looting
4 Life from the Loam
1 Lightning Axe
1 Rally the Peasants
2 Blood Crypt
1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Copperline Gorge
2 Mana Confluence
2 Mountain
2 Dakmor Salvage
2 Stomping Ground
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Ancient Grudge
1 Collective Brutality
2 Gnaw to the Bone
2 Lightning Axe
3 Nature's Claim
3 Thoughtseize
1 Vengeful Pharaoh
1 Darkblast
I originally palyed 4 color gifts, but then decided to sell every modern staple, fetchlands, snapcasters, lotV...you name it; but at the end of the day there was only one single card i missed, and that was liliana of the veil. As a result, i decided to buy them back, and build a deck that played just a bunch of good cards.
I´m playing:
1 Breeding Pool
1 Forest
1 Island
2 Overgrown Tomb
4 Polluted Delta
2 Swamp
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Watery Grave
2 Botanical Sanctum
1 Misty Rainforest
2 Hissing quagmire
1 Urborg, tomb of yawgmoth
3 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Snapcaster Mage
2 Gnarlwood Dryad
3 Courser of kruphix
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Fatal Push
2 Nihil Spellbomb
1 Collective brutality
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
4 Traverse the Ulvenwald
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope
1 liliana, the Last Hope
1 Gnarlwood dryad
1 surgical extraction
2 negate
2 Feed the clan
1 Reclamation sage
1 spellskite
1 darkblast
1 engineered explosives
1 natural state
1 seal of primordium
1 dismember
1 maelstrom pulse
A few things. I actually like gnarlwood dryad as a metagame call. It´s kinda tough to deal with tasigur, angler and shadow... so having a tutorable road block is pretty good. It´s also really really good against burn. It trades off early, and eats dudes later on. It´s bascially a modern version of nimble mongoose, if you think of this deck as a "legacy tempo deck"... of sorts. Cheap threat that kicks ass late game. I was laughed at for playing this, but not dealing with it, and having to deal with literally every other permanent this deck can put out(except maybe snapcaster mage), means that it itself, becomes a threat. It´s a cool card
I like courser. Tough to kill, not fatal pushable, an enchantment/creature for delirium, synergizes with grim flayer and jace... just good. Maybe 3 is too much, but i think the card is great.
That´s another thing, the cards are all great. They´re great cards on their own. Kind of like jund. BUT, there is a lot of synergy here. I´ve +1 of liliana, the last hope on an obstinate baloth, hit with a 4/4 flayer, to mill a thoughtseize and flash it back with jace to strip my opponent off of his primeval titan. All around just a lot of synergy: jace+courser, courser+flayer, flayer+jace.
Just like jund, every threat is a must kill (maybe not the snapcaster or the dryads, i´m only playing 2 of the latter), and that is awesome. I like calling this deck "blue-jund". The cards are just good. I´ve lost to burn once, and affinity once too, because of a mistake, but i´ve also 5-0´d a tournament at my LGS, beating jeskai delver, eldrazi tron, 8 rack, UW control and jund deaths shadow.
The mana base could be better (and should), the sideboard is a mess (i don´t own any big game hunters, which i should be playing), i don´t think scavenging ooze is a md card, might switch it for somehting else. Other cards i like are: hangarback walker, Kalitas, traitor of ghet,thrun, the last troll. All which i should consider. Maybe hangarback walker instead of scavenging ooze? Ooze seems matchup dependent, not something i´m fond of.
Mishra's Bauble i probably wouldn´t play even if i had. I like the 19 land 4 bauble 4 traverse, but i think it´s fine without the baubles honestly.
Real simple question. As with every new set, i´m really curious to know what cards you played that you think weren´t worth it and which you just couldn´t get enough of. So basically what was great, what wasn´t what you hoped for, how good the gods were o weren´t, which cards you felt were limited gold, which could be constructed sleepers, etc etc.
I didn´t play the prerelease myself, but would love to hear what you thought about it all!
Really, it all comes down to what you want to do i think. The shell is still the shell. Bloodghast+amalgam+amoeba,dredgers and enablers is the core anyways, and it works great. If you want to try something out, but no one has or the winning lists don´t use it, just do it, as long as the core is intact.
Bridges were good for me because i knew most people would forget it, not understand it, run into it etc etc, which would give me an edge, after all a win is a win. I was expecting lots of creatures, bolts and other targeted removal.
The "it´s a dead card in your hand" clause is pretty dumb i think. Half the deck you already don´t want to draw almost EVER. Of course, this adds an additional 4 cards that "don´t want to be in your hand ever", but proportionally "dredge-land-enablers" are still the same, allowing it to function well. Also, the upside for having them is pretty radical in creature matches (improves our burn matchup a LOT i believe)
The theory is usually NOT what it´s like in the practice. Practice points out that our blockers are terrible. If you need to block an infect creature with an amoeba, you´d love to get 1-2 free 2/2´s out of it. Practice also shows that once you flip over an amoeba and a bridge (equally as likely to flip an amalgam as well), burn can´t really attack anymore. Your 1 blocker now becomes 2, eventually you´ll attack with tradeable creatures like bloodghast, which also trigger bridges, and it´s hard to beat you by then.
If your opponent burns his own creature...you´re more than happy. It´s a 2 for 0. For ZERO cards.That´s a pretty terrible play i believe. Also, how likely is it to have 4 amalgams in your yard? Equally as likely to have 4 bridges, they won´t exile completely that often. So, if you flip creatures and a bridge they either attack and you get to trade creatures or make zombies, or they don´t attack, you keep doing what you do, and force them to play burn spells one a turn. If they don´t attack, you still have to kill them, which is somewhat tough, now, g1 you´ll mill over a conflagrate if you stall out, allowing you to pressure them. Game 2, those will be gnaw to the bone, which are even more backbreaking, since now they can´t tap out.
The idea behind just "value bridges" is making combat a living hell against our toughest matches. Without bridges, sometimes there is no reason to attack with a bloodghast, since the creature on the other side is bigger. Bridge kind of gives you something to do with that attack. it lets you attack a lot more freely, plus you don´t HAVE to get value off of them, play accordingly. Additionally, it "kind of" evades grafdiggers cage, as long as you have creatures, Neonate becomes a "trick" and worth 2-3 bodies, and scavenging ooze becomes a joke. What are they going to do? Exile dredgers most likely and block the bloodghasts and amalgams, but with 1-2 bridges out...you completely overload the ooze, that´s just how it turns out.
So, the day after wmcq # 2, i decided to start with dredge. Had little over a month to get it done. Got the cards, tested on my own, read the meta here fairly correctly.
Eventually, and before the wmcq#3:
Got 500 games under my belt with various lists. Losing to aggressive mulligan, scapeshift, tron and the occasional rest in peace/cage.
No one here was playing dredge. Very little hate. No one would get the cards in time even if they concluded it was the best deck. No one knows what bridge from below does.
Lots of burn/affinity. Little to no combo.
Everybody thought i was playing something i wasn´t (we know each other pretty well as we are few)
My list
4 faithless looting
3 tormenting voice
1 lightning axe
4 Narcomoeba
4 Bloodghast
4 Prized amalgam
4 Bridge from below
1 Haunted dead
2 Conflagrate
4 golgari grave-troll
4 Stinkweed imp
2 life from the loam
4 Wooded foorhills
2 Bloodstained mire
2 Stomping grounds
2 Blood Crypt
2 Copperline Gorge
2 Mana confluence
2 Dakmor Salvage
2 Mountain
1 Steam vents
3 Engineered Explosives
2 Lightning axe
2 Darkblast
2 Gnaw to the bone
3 Ancient Grudge
Round 1 - Living end
Game Mull to 3 on the play. Ended up winning anyways thanks to the bridges... and that i´m playing against living end.
Game 2 i get him down to 2 life after an attack. Ended up thinking of whether or to conflagrate him for the win or gnaw to the bone to keep myself alive for the next turn. I gnaw and he jund charms my grave in response. He later told me he would have pyroclasmed, but he noticed he could exile the grave instead. a)Gave him too much time, b) Should have gone for the win, not to try not to lose c)Playing around ricochet trap without having shown a conflagrate game 1 against 4 mana open seems dumb, and d) Gnaw to the bone is probably not even that good anyways.
Game 3 i rebord the congflags, have 2 enablers + ggt and race him before he found the 3rd land to living end me (possibly for the win)
This guy had no clue what was going on. None. Unfortunately for him i knew he was playing burn, so fetched appropriately
Game 1 he thinks whether to keep or not, decides to keep. T1 guide T2 guide guide. I get an early haunted dead, bridges and narcos. He is about to burn me out and i decide to attack with everyhing, he trades incorrectly and doesn´t draw well, and my creatures get the job done.
Game 2 he starts with wild nacatl. I loot and pass. He plays double swift spear. On my turn i dredge and loot, to get 3 narcos 1 bloodghast 2 amalgam and 2 bridges. On his turn he attacks me, i block 1 on 1 each creature. He for some reason uses his pump spells THEN and there, for whatever reason. I end up putting 6 2/2´s and smashing back for 20 against a tapped opponent.
Round 3- Melira
Game1 we both go to 5 cards, i dredge like crazy, conflag 4 mana dorks and win.
Game2 I can´t remember a thing. He decided to combo me on upkeep when i was about to dredge back a darkblast. Had i had a lightning axe, i might have gotten away with it. Would have won with an attack on my turn
Game 3 He hits melira and finks, and that kind of messes things up a bit. However i get him to low cards and life and have a darkblast in hand. He assembles combo with 1 mana to spare, i darkblast the seer, and he chords up the third one in response.
Round 4- Eldrazi
Game2 He mulled to 5 got a bit mana screwed. I got real fancy conflagrating my bloodghasts, casting stinkweed imps (that´s pretty fancy :p) and eventually beat him.
Round 5- Taxes
Game 1 i ran him over. He got out a blade splicer, blinked it with flickerwisp and also a brimaz. I was able to conflag the brimaz and wisp and get him down to 0 almost without too much trouble.
Game 2 He didn´t t2 rest in peace me. I had looted in a way that that wouldn´t hurt that much. I decided to thoughtseize just in case. Coast was clear, his hand was double wisp double finks. A few turns later i had a pretty good board. Rest in peace came in but he was already at 4 life, i attacked with the team and traded an amalagam for a finks, which didn´t return (i missed that, someone outside pointed it our). Cast a stinkweed imp and had 2 amoebas and an imp coming in for lethal.
Round 6- Burn
I was in 3rth seat so i decided to draw into the top 8 (yay)
TOP 8
Burn
Game 1 He was on the play. I kind of didn´t have much pressure. I had to conflagrate to get rid of the board and taking him to 10, playing a land and smashing with 1 bloodghast. He had a few cards and i was at 1 life, so his topdeck killed me.
Game 2 I start out fetching carefully but dredging not that much. Eventually i was at a pretty low life, staring a pair of suspended rift bolts but my opponent tapped. I HAD to draw a third land, otherwise it would be likely i lost. Thankfully copperline gorges are my friends. Got 10 life that moment in response to my 2 bloodghast triggers and ended up winning.
Game 3 My opponent got stuck on 2 lands, while i dredge up amalgams and amoebas. Eventually i had him on a 2 turn clock when i flipped my 3rd amoeba, so i decided to leave it there since there was a gnaw in the grave. My opponent boros chams me, i gain 6 in response, and he concedes on his turn.
Melira.
Same person as in the swiss... Every game, basically the same. Was a turn away from winning, and he finds 2/3 combo with the company. Game 2, was a turn away from winning again, and he chords for the seer with a melira he found with a company, the finks he drew, and the chord he had in his hand.
---
The deck was great. I kind of wish i had collective brutallity (i coulnd´t get so i tested without) to kill those stupid melira.
19 Land is and has always been fine with MINIMUM 2 loams.
I used to board out loams when i boarded out conflags, but then stopped (not that i lost that many games where i boarded it out, i just didn´t want to risk it) because loam is so so so important it´s not even fun.
Brige from below. So. This card is what makes game 1 against burn "winnable" and makes Thought-Knot seer look like a pile of crap. It makes creature matchups super lop sided, and it has the added benefit of "maybe my opponent screws up". After practicing a TONNE with it, i ended up cutting 1 haunted dead for a conflag (from 2 dead to 1) which with 4 bridges in the deck, is a mistake. Discarding a bridge "on command" gives you a "surprise factor" that makes the card a lot better. I would have wanted 2 dead and i knew it, but it was really tough to take something out so i didn´t (mainly because i would have wanted another land too, just in case).
The sideboard was ok but it´s meta dependent. Most likely in an open meta, natures claim is probably fairly important.. You just want a clear answer to their answer. Explosives is ok, but sometimes it takes 2 WHOLE turns to get anything done, it´s a bit slow. There is probably not that much burn in other places, so 1 gnaw could be okay. I guess collective brutality is a must now a days right?
Beat living end (first game of the turnament on a mull to 3 on the play), hatebears, burn, and bant eldrazi. Beat burn in the top 8 and then lost to melira.