Well, I am jumping into some modern play and afraid I am really not being original for this list. As it stands this Sammy Tukemans GP San Diego 2nd place list. I really like it in the first bit of trial that I have had with it though. I plan to sort of use it for a while until I can feel out the meta some. Its been really robust and exciting so far for me though. I absolutely love playing control and I really love my snapcaster mages so it felt like a nice time to transition to playing a little modern.
Overall, I have been happy running 3x Clique. I wanted to try to come back to Resto but lightly so I think I am going to try the following change:
-1 Electrolyze I like this removal a lot against a lot of people but I have run into some issues with this against Township on occasion. I also dont like having this when I run into sac outlets as they can dodge my draw effect.
+1 Restoration Angel I wanted to come back with just one angel. I saw a lot of situations where it was not what I wanted but I figure with the heavier clique set up it could be better but I dont want to cut into my spells or my cliques to add more than this.
-1 Aven Mindcensor I think honestly this shifts me too far into trying to be a tempo list. I want to keep my snapcasters happy with spells and this sort of effect is very situational so a 2/1 flash for 3 when he isnt appropriate is sort of meh. At least the shadows are still a draw a card effect when they are bad.
+1 Electrolize I love running 4x of these so this puts more control back in the list. I like these against a LOT of decks as they cantrip for me and generally just create good card advantage.
Well, I havent gotten to play as much with my modern list so far but I have been really enjoying the UWR draw go mentality. I am slowly shifting a little more into a tempo style of build but after seeing how the slow rolling planeswalker versions have been playing I just dont see myself going back.
I forgot to mention some changes I went with a while ago:
Pyroclasm -> Path to Exile Pyro was too situational mainboard so I cut it out and put it in the SB. I found myself needing the Paths too often to run only 2 of them. Remand -> Spell Snare unfortunately I have gotten mostly mixed results with snare and remand but overall I think I have seen better results with snare. I made this swap and removed remand from the list again.
Moving forward to where my list was lol. The resto angels have been sort of wonky for me. I am trying to speed things up and get a little more value than what they were giving me. I am trying out some things and seeing how they go.
-2 Restoration Angel It just hasnt been working out for me. I dont run enough creatures so too often it comes in just to beat face. I decided it needed to be something else after a while. Its also really hard to multi task in a turn.
+1 Aven Mindcensor I am really interested to see how this guy does. For now I am going to splash him slightly as a 1x of but I have some ideas how this might end up being a 2 of if he pans out. I am still running my 2x Shadow of Doubt so I am actually very interested to see how the two compare overall. I could see myself running a second mindcensor potentially but I think I still want to keep my spell count high for snaps.
+1 Vendilion Clique running a third clique will be interesting. Its really the top of the number I would ever run but its a nice fast little critter and I play against too much combo. I think this could be a bit of a meta call for me but with how much I see combo I think running the third one mainboard is a good call.
My sideboard feels like a damn trainwreck... It has a little of everything but its something I want to work on. Sadly I dont get to play enough or against a big enough variety of decks to really get a feel of much. I have however felt like I might want Surgical Extraction to return to the sideboard as I felt like between it and Sowing Salt I got better results from the extract. I would likely keep at least 1x salt in the SB but I would love to make room for 2x extracts again.
I had been trying some combinations of the 2x planeswalker lists until late. My problem was that they seemed to focus more on the aggro matches and I felt like I had a much larger disadvantage against the combo players.
Due to this, I recently moved to a list very very close to that of Cheon's recent creation. I made a few tweeks though as I personally don't like going to 8 fetchlands but I felt that Sulfer Falls was a bit heavy at 3x. I decided for now to go to 7x fetches with 2 Sulfer Falls as sort of a compromise. I just feel like fetches are a liability to Aven Mindcensor as well as just the life loss from them adding up against the aggro decks. Mystic Gate still sort of worries me as its a little bit of a liability still but its interesting so I might play with it and see how it goes. You really have to watch how you tap though and I think ideally tap it down as soon as possible as keeping it for later seems like a liability.
I also think that the Clique in SB is mostly unnecessary as I think there are better cards to use as hate. There just seemed like too few matches where it was the correct card to come in from what I have seen. Its a nice all around card but I don't care for it in SB. I am trying a Pyroclasm as the replacement for the clique but I want to get some testing in before I really do too much commenting on sideboard and such.
-1 Electrolyze I like this removal a lot against a lot of people but I have run into some issues with this against Township on occasion. I also dont like having this when I run into sac outlets as they can dodge my draw effect.
+1 Restoration Angel I wanted to come back with just one angel. I saw a lot of situations where it was not what I wanted but I figure with the heavier clique set up it could be better but I dont want to cut into my spells or my cliques to add more than this.
-1 Aven Mindcensor I think honestly this shifts me too far into trying to be a tempo list. I want to keep my snapcasters happy with spells and this sort of effect is very situational so a 2/1 flash for 3 when he isnt appropriate is sort of meh. At least the shadows are still a draw a card effect when they are bad.
+1 Electrolize I love running 4x of these so this puts more control back in the list. I like these against a LOT of decks as they cantrip for me and generally just create good card advantage.
I forgot to mention some changes I went with a while ago:
Moving forward to where my list was lol. The resto angels have been sort of wonky for me. I am trying to speed things up and get a little more value than what they were giving me. I am trying out some things and seeing how they go.
My sideboard feels like a damn trainwreck... It has a little of everything but its something I want to work on. Sadly I dont get to play enough or against a big enough variety of decks to really get a feel of much. I have however felt like I might want Surgical Extraction to return to the sideboard as I felt like between it and Sowing Salt I got better results from the extract. I would likely keep at least 1x salt in the SB but I would love to make room for 2x extracts again.
Due to this, I recently moved to a list very very close to that of Cheon's recent creation. I made a few tweeks though as I personally don't like going to 8 fetchlands but I felt that Sulfer Falls was a bit heavy at 3x. I decided for now to go to 7x fetches with 2 Sulfer Falls as sort of a compromise. I just feel like fetches are a liability to Aven Mindcensor as well as just the life loss from them adding up against the aggro decks. Mystic Gate still sort of worries me as its a little bit of a liability still but its interesting so I might play with it and see how it goes. You really have to watch how you tap though and I think ideally tap it down as soon as possible as keeping it for later seems like a liability.
I also think that the Clique in SB is mostly unnecessary as I think there are better cards to use as hate. There just seemed like too few matches where it was the correct card to come in from what I have seen. Its a nice all around card but I don't care for it in SB. I am trying a Pyroclasm as the replacement for the clique but I want to get some testing in before I really do too much commenting on sideboard and such.