Well, after a bunch of testing with the 3/3/3 split of 3-drops i got to the conclusion that the mana base can´t support it the way its build.
I heard many pros like Gerry Thompson, Pascal, Sam Pardee, say that the blue comes in a splash for this deck, and adding Skyspawner kinda messes that up.
What i do think is that Skyspawner MIGHT be more important than Matter Reshaper. So, the natural transistion is to cut one of the two, since Displacer is the most important of the three.
What do you guys think?. Is it time to move over Reshaper or we can battle Affinity and Infect from another angle?.
Skyspawner has been sooo good that i find hard to not play him in the MB.
This deck is still in work and i barely can see the roof.
You need to tune a little bit your manabase for run 3 skyspawner, they are great, today i won a game vs aura attacking with a skyspawner with 2 exalted triggers, it's a meta choice.
I think Pascal mentioned that in testing they used Skyspawner and Matter Reshaper interchangably and they initially determined that Matter Reshaper was better (I'd be inclined to believe that because some of my Reshaper flips have been bonkers or he just keeps bashing in for 3 a turn). I do think Skyspawner is on the very edge though and may warrant a spot in the list eventually.
I think Grixis is doable - it's sort of an control deck but packs serious amount of removal (decent removal in the form of bolts and awesome in the form of Terminate). Aura is a race and they should prioritize lifegain aura's. EE can be awkward due to totem armors though..
Grixis is easy mode honestly. It's a control deck that doesn't run many sweepers. Sure they have more hard spot removal but it comes at the cost of Lightning Helix which means they burn through their kill spells on things like Matter Reshaper. It's very important to get Reality Smasher to stick against them because they have pretty much no profitable answer to it and it kills all their threats and tramples over thopter tokens in the lists running Pia and Kiran.
Played a small tournament yesterday, had some serious matchups. Wrecked Elves 2-1 due to a Grafdigger's Cage nullifying 3 Chords + 1 Company in his hand - he made an attack with Ezuri active hoping I made a mistake.. suffice to say I didn't. Other games were vs. Jund/Junk - I think we should chew those decks up, midrange can't deal with the amount of pressure we put on the board.
Finals I id'd with a Affinity player but we played it out to see how horrible the mu really was, I won on the back of my single ghost quarter - he overloaded the board in the face of my Engineered Explosives (on 2, because Ravager + Skirge) - he was doing math and left 1 mana open to activate his Inkmoth (I noticed), my turn I cracked the EE mainfase to bait out that he would sac his board to Ravager and move the counters to his Inkmoth instead of his 0/1 battlecry dude... he did, afterwards I played my Ghost Quarter and that was GG. This game showed me how important the EE are, for all aggro matchups they matter, A LOT!
I actually think our Affinity matchup isn't too bad. EE does much better against them than Infect, they can't recover from a board wipe like Infect can (where they just hold their next creature in hand until the first one dies). T2 TKS -> T3 Smasher has never lost me a game against them because they simply have no answers. Displacer is also a monster against them by blinking whatever they put plating on or sac ravager to. Stony Silence out of the board is also pretty GG most times.
I've been contemplating what good Infect hosers are - because that mu is pretty annoying. A friend that plays Infect told me that Ghostly Prison is problematic for them. What are other cards that come to mind that might work well? Ghostly also works against swarm decks such as Affinity & Bushwacker Zoo.
Norn's Annex is the only decent card you listed, Magus of the Moat and Teferi's Moat get ignored by Inkmoth Nexus, Blinkmoth, Ornithopter, and Vault Skirge. That makes them not even that good against infect(they are good against Boogles and Zoo though).
Ghostly Prison is probably your best bet.
I think our best route is still trying to get to the following Spellskite->Displacer->Drowner of Hope. If you can ramp quickly enough to those you should be able to win. They REALLY struggle with Drowner since it requires double vines to stop. Bring in counter magic for the pump spells and be sure you kill Spellskites if you can.
If a T3 Blood Moon comes down it's problematic (tested vs Blue Moon), but if you already developed somewhat of a board you can just go true them - the removal those decks play are pretty bad against us or just outright slow. That matchup did made me realize we have no fetchable / useable Waste source since we don't play any basic Island or Waste (so we aren't able to cast Drowner or Skyspawner). I did find myself with TKN, Smasher & Matter Reshaper in hand with no ability to cast them ever that game, pretty hard lock.
This is why cards like Stubborn Denial are good. If they try and jam Blood Moon turn 3 we can counter it. If they try to hold onto it for too long, the chance for us getting it with a TKS and usually apply enough pressure before they finish us (or get our basics into play). The main Blood Moon decks that I have found to be problematic are those that ALSO run land destruction to hit our basics. I do play 1 Waste for those instances though. Having 1 less G source for T1 hasn't really affected my overall experience as of yet.
Anyone else feel Natural State is a perfect card for our sideboard? It hits Blood Moon, Ensnaring Bridge, and many other things that can cause us problems. I might be adding a couple into my SB.
It's a fine card if that's what you choose to bring in. I don't think it is exactly required though. Sideboards are really based on preference in answers. I actually haven't run into a ton of Blood Moons but the decks that do run them I typically try and just counter it with Stubborn Denial or rip it out of hand with TKS. Ensnaring Bridges problem comes from them getting multiples.. or a Spellskite to protect it. Ensnaring Bridge decks are also not very popular right now.
I'm looking at putting this together because I love the flavor of Eldrazi and since it's a bit more balanced I figure it could be fun. My only question is how does this fair with the Nahiri decks going around? It seems my meta has at least two (but i'm sure more) that I had to play against last FNM.
Look through the last couple pages to see my tournament logs but I'll give you a slight spoiler. I am 14-0-1 against control. That includes Nahiri.
Round 2 Abzan Coco (0-2)[1-1]:
Game 1 was horrid. He had essentially natural T3 infinite life and I drew 2 spellskites and all lands as answers. Game 2 I should have won with a very very complicated line of play that I screwed up. I'll go over the logistics with yall so that maybe you'll remember it if it ever happens to you. So I have him at 5 life. He has a Spellskite, Melira, Seer, Anafenza and Noble Hierarch in play. I have 2 Drowner of Hopes 4 Scion tokens and a Displacer that I just topdecked and played. I have enough mana to blink 3 things... however I also have a stubborn denial in hand and my opponent has 1 card in their hand (they know I have Denial as I found it off a Matter Reshaper). In the end if I try to blink my Drowner of Hope he can redirect to spellskite twice and go down to 1. Even if I tap down as many as possible with the scions, he'd still have enough to block the attackers. Likewise if try and sacrifice Scion tokens he redirects 2 to Spellskite and has 2 creatures back to block the 2 Drowner of Hope and then he will be able to untap. Instead I pass the turn and him and I both know that he has to find a Kitchen Finks and has 4 available (Scry) triggers to find it. He finds it 3 down and goes infinite which we just don't have an answer to. Here was the play I should have made. I sac the scion tokens to tap down all but Seer and Anafenza. He is forced to block or die so he now has to find 2 pieces for the infinite combo and I'd have him dead on the following turn. CoCo would normally be his out there but with Stubborn denial up with Ferocious it wouldn't resolve. Oh well. Live and learn I guess. This matchup feels really awkward to bad. I really wish we had a way to win through infinite life.. oh well.
Sorry to drag this back up from a couple of days ago, but I've only just seen it. I think there was a way for you to have won that turn though.
Drowner of Hope
Drowner of Hope
Eldrazi Displacer
Scion
Scion
Scion
Scion
If you go to blink one of your drowners, the villain has the option to use spellskites ability. It doesn't really matter if he does or not though if my thinking is correct. Either he uses the ability and he loses life or he doesn't and you get 2 more scions.
You could do it a second time if you want but it doesn't matter, you've got enough of everything you need. If spellskite gets displaced with its activation cost, it'll come back into play tapped and can't block. If you sac a scion to tap another creature, the villain will either have to let it happen or lose another 2 life redirecting that to spellskite.
So either the villain is at 1 life and just the spellskite tapped or he's at 3 life and 2 blockers tapped. either he has 3 blockers left that you can tap all of them down with your scions and just walk in for the win, or he has 4 blockers left and can't redirect any more activations to spellskite.
After you've tapped his board, or most of it, you'll still have a free attacker to win the game. Thinking about it some more, it's probably better to try to blink a drowner twice first. Either you get more scions than you need and can do it easily, or he redirects to spellskite and you have more than enough scions to tap down his defenders.
If I've misread something from your initial post though, then disregard all of this as nonsense.
I did the math while I was sitting there (maybe I forgot a creature between the match and the writeup for his side like another mana dork or something). I remember knowing I could swing in but he'd have enough blockers to not die. My out was that I could have selected which creatures he blocked with (outside of Spellskite) and put him to 1. I had the answer for his only out (CoCo) in hand and he'd have been dead on the next turn since I could then blink and tap down his team. Still I admit that I punted that game and with it I never got to a game 3. I am not perfect all the time ha ha.
Ok Ladies and Gents.. I got another couple tournament reports for you! Finally stopped running headlong into Control unfortunately but now I can address other areas of concern and get reps in against other archetypes.
Round 1 Kiki-Chord (2-1)[1-0]:
Game 1 I had to mull to 5 and he got a very fast Kiki combo off. It was through a TKS to take a resto Angel as well. He ripped Chord on his next draw and went off the following turn (He chorded for Resto, blinked his on board Ewit get Chord back and then win on his turn). Game 2 and 3 I managed to play the grindy game and was able to minimize the value of his Voice's and a Grafdiggers Cage stranded 2 CoCo's and a Chord in his hand Game 3.
Round 2 RG Tron (2-0)[2-0]:
Game 1 stick large fat beats, take payoff card with TKS, have lethal through Wurmcoil on following turn. Game 2 dropped Stony Silence early and ripped only payoff card out of his hand. I get Displacer TKS soft lock on his draw step as I close out the game quickly. First time playing RG Tron with this deck and the games went according to plan. As long as they don't magical christmas us or our deck gives us chaff I think we are favored here.
Round 3 RG Tron (0-2)[2-1]:
Ok you know what I was saying before... ug. My opponent got his spellskites on Turn 2 both games and it stopped me from swinging through with the Matter Reshaper and Displacers I had on board. Top that off that I couldn't blink the things I wanted (I did get to hit him for essentially 10 with a TKS game 2 [swing for 4, attempt to blink twice during draw step which gets redirected to Spellskite]). The main issue is he found 2 during game 2 and was able to sit behind them and protect his Ugin til it got to Ult. I scooped when he dropped Ulamogg and destroyed my boardstate. He revealed his hand and had another Ulamogg and another Ugin in hand.. some people get all the luck.
Round 4 Abzan CoCo (0-2)[2-2]:
Game 1 he had the T3 Infinite combo pretty much natural as you draw it up (even played a Seer before he could see what I was on). Game 2 I had him dead on board as long as he didn't rip a Chord or a Finks. (he had Seer on Board and all the other combo pieces in hand when I looked at it with TKS. I had to take a Redcap to just not die (since he had Anafenza and Melira in hand). Ofcourse he ripped it off the top and won.
Ug some very bad beats there at the end... what are you gonna do. I keep getting wrecked by opposing Spellskites. Not being able to tap what we want or blink what we need to is just brutal. I am considering putting some number of Pithing Needles in the Sideboard since they can be found with Ancient Stirrings and it can be useful in multiple matchups (hitting Viscera Seer, Karn, O-Stone, Cranial Plating, Spellskite, Ezuri, Ravager, Inkmoth Nexus and so many more).
Round 1 Grixis Control (2-0)[1-0]:
So absurd stat for this match to identify how good our control matchup is if played correctly. I won game 1 on 3 spells and game 2 on 5. The rest of my cards and draws were lands. Westvale Abbey sealed me up Game 2 with a bit of Ohrmendhal overkill (he was at 1 but I flipped it for the hell of it because he had no outs and how often do we get to do that. I am now 13-0-1 against control with this list.
Round 2 UR Delver (1-2)[1-1]:
So Game 1 I rofled over him because he got hosed on lands and things I guess. I didn't see enough of his deck to really have him on anything. Saw a bunch of basic Islands (one of which he fetched for after the first Steam Vents) so I thought it was possibly Blue Moon. Game 2 I got punished hard for taking out Paths and he manages to rip a bolt to flip delver and kill me. Game 3 he had essentially the nuts and rode Swiftspear, Vapor Snag, Bolt, Roast to victory. Roast was the primary hurts card in the matchup. Being a budget list he was running a full 4x and as you can expect... it wrecks everything in our deck really. Normally over the coarse of a long game you'd be fine with the 2 for 1. As it stood, you couldn't keep taking the Delver, YP and Swiftspear beats. Ug, oh well.
Round 3 RG Tron (0-2)[1-2]:
Game 1 I got land screwed for the first time in a while. Stuck on 2 lands I was unable to stop what he was doing (I had enough time and threats in opening hand which consisted of both lands that I probably had him dead otherwise). Game 2 I stick a T2 Stoney Silence. He plays a 2nd Tron piece and passes the turn. I use my turn to Ancient Stirrings and find Ghost Quarter which is perfect so I could guarantee to stop his Natural tron and hopefully by me the time to get my TKS's on board and strip anything relevant from hand. Well as it turns out he had natural tron AND redundant pieces for the first 2 he played plus payoff cards. Man I am getting frustrated with my opponents having the nuts. It seems to be happening with stupid consistency.
Round 4 Grixis Control (2-0)[2-2]:
Second verse same as the first? This time I got more spells to play with but it was a total annihilation either way. Put my anti-control marker to 14-0-1 over 7 Tournaments.
Thoughts.. I think I am going to cut a land to 23 and World Breaker from the Main. My total changes might look something like this:
MB:
-1 Land
-1 World Breaker
+2 Eldrazi Skyspawner
SB:
-2 Timely Reinforcements
-1 Mark of Asylum
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 World Breaker
I want to try Skyspawner as another early creature that has the evasion to get around walls like Spellskite. Also it is ramp and another Scion for Drowner later (not to mention Skyspawner makes another Displacer target). I get flooded a LOT more than I'd like as well. I think with 5 dorks and 4 stirrings which can find lands we should be fine at 23 but it'll need testing. I like World Breaker but if I am reducing the land count I might as well reduce the curve. He also hasn't been 100% vital to my control matchup. As for Timely, they have just never come up in a spot to be good. Sure they might be good against burn but that has been the only matchup where they have come in for. I think I might just surrender the Burn matchup as being bad and give myself better odds of beating other decks.
Grafdigger's cage is the big middle finger to Abzan Coco decks. It stops Company, Chord, and Persist; which just leaves them with a bunch of underwhelming little creatures that they have to try and grow to match your Eldrazi through Anafenza. Stick an early Cage (holding on to another one is not a bad thing considering they bring in Reclamation Sage) and just get some big dudes down and start swinging.
Yeah I am running them. I hit it game 2 as well but he had a Maelstrom Pulse and then ripped an Ewit off the top to use it again on my double Reshapers that I was killing him with. It was a bit of bad luck as well (I didn't hit a large eldrazi for a while) and as I stated, I totally misplayed at the end there not thinking of making him block with Seer. I just need to play the matchup more so I get reps in. There are also several other matchups I'd like to get reps against but folks at my LGS love their control too much. To give you an idea of my meta here are my numbers since I picked up this deck:
So I mean 60% of my matches have come against Midrange or Control decks which I have gone 11-0-1 against since they are this decks wheel house. I'm totally fine with that as I am raking in prize money hand over fist but I definitely need more reps against other decks that way when I do face them in larger spots that I am prepared.
Round 1 Cruel Control (2-1)[1-0]:
I seem to play this player about once a week and he is always on some variant of Grixis usually. This week it was Cruel Control. Him and I play often enough (even in this larger player pool) that he said he assembled his deck this week explicitly hoping he wouldn't run into me and my Bant Eldrazi. Game 1 went pretty much according to plan. I stuck a Cavern of Souls and started churning out value that he couldn't find any responses for. Game 2 he used a T4 Crumble to Dust on my Cavern and with some good to lucky top-decks he got his way into the win. Game 3 I proceeded to drop threats through removal and eventually got us both to top deck mode (let his visions resolve then cast an Uncounterable TKS and verify his hand as being trash afterwards). I then stuck a Thragtusk and Eldrazi Displacer and trololololed my way to victory.
Round 2 Abzan Coco (0-2)[1-1]:
Game 1 was horrid. He had essentially natural T3 infinite life and I drew 2 spellskites and all lands as answers. Game 2 I should have won with a very very complicated line of play that I screwed up. I'll go over the logistics with yall so that maybe you'll remember it if it ever happens to you. So I have him at 5 life. He has a Spellskite, Melira, Seer, Anafenza and Noble Hierarch in play. I have 2 Drowner of Hopes 4 Scion tokens and a Displacer that I just topdecked and played. I have enough mana to blink 3 things... however I also have a stubborn denial in hand and my opponent has 1 card in their hand (they know I have Denial as I found it off a Matter Reshaper). In the end if I try to blink my Drowner of Hope he can redirect to spellskite twice and go down to 1. Even if I tap down as many as possible with the scions, he'd still have enough to block the attackers. Likewise if try and sacrifice Scion tokens he redirects 2 to Spellskite and has 2 creatures back to block the 2 Drowner of Hope and then he will be able to untap. Instead I pass the turn and him and I both know that he has to find a Kitchen Finks and has 4 available (Scry) triggers to find it. He finds it 3 down and goes infinite which we just don't have an answer to. Here was the play I should have made. I sac the scion tokens to tap down all but Seer and Anafenza. He is forced to block or die so he now has to find 2 pieces for the infinite combo and I'd have him dead on the following turn. CoCo would normally be his out there but with Stubborn denial up with Ferocious it wouldn't resolve. Oh well. Live and learn I guess. This matchup feels really awkward to bad. I really wish we had a way to win through infinite life.. oh well.
Round 3 Mono U Tron (2-0)[2-1]:
Game 1 I go T2 Matter Reshaper, T3 TKS (taking Mindslaver and seeing he has nothing good), T4 Cavern->Smasher. That pretty much sealed the game from there. He did get to Cyclonic Rift my team and it did stall a bit but he just couldn't come back. Game 2 I proceeded on the beats plan. He did resolve a Mindslaver against me but post board I have very little he could do to hurt me (I had all beaters in hand). He finds a Platinum Angel which makes me think for a moment if I have an out to it. After a few seconds I realized I did and kept playing (World Breaker is the out). I then stick a board of TKS, Thragtusk and Eldrazi Displacer onboard. I gain a rediculous life total to keep myself from dying to Angel and I soft lock him out of his draw step. He did pseudo punt by letting me take a Cyclonic Rift which he totally should have cast because I didn't have a Cavern of Souls and while I had enough mana to blink TKS a few times, he gets a blind draw and I have only 1 blink for his following turn if everything resolves uncountered. He then just scoops when he realized his mistake and it was his last rift. (At first he didn't realize the lock I had him on and at EOT he used Academy Ruins and put Mindslaver back on top his library. I responded "Still at End Step, blink TKS. Draw your card first aaaaaaaaand its gone.")
Round 4 Jeskai Control (2-0)[3-1]:
I like this guy as a player but this is the same guy who insisted he has a favorable matchup against me despite me winning every game we have played of this matchup. Games themselves were fun but not a ton worth elaborating on. Thragtusk was a monster again. Grafdiggers was insanely awkward for him blanking double Snapcasters in his game 2 hand. These matchups are all about pacing. Don't barf all your threats onto board. Make them answer and then play the next one. Another fun (but ended up irrelevant) play during game 2 was I flipped Mark of Asylum after he bolted my Matter Reshaper. He drew no more Burn spells and I had a Cage out so it never actually mattered but that could have instantly made his removal awful. In the end I closed out game 2 because he was on the ropes and I went to blink Drowner of Hope. In response he helix and then bolts it. I sacrifice the 2 original scions and tap my last mana to blink it again. 2 turns later he was dead.
All in all another successful showing. I really want to find an Abzan Coco player and grind that matchup a bit to get a better feel for our role there and maybe be more confident in my keeps and SB against it (also all those tricky lines of play against that deck). The biggest breakout star this week has been the Swagmaster Thragdaddy. Thragtusk, I still have yet to face Burn which is the matchup he was initially intended for but because my local meta is so full of Midrange and Control (when he comes in as well), he has been really pulling the weight. The next card I am going to test is Westvale Abbey for the reasons I have mentioned before. There are just too many threats that require a "Path" in decks that run it for me to care if it flips. It is also excellent against Control as well. I was playtesting with a buddy last night after the tournament and got him out of actual cards (he was on Jeskai Control). He has a couple Wall of Omens in play but he has nothing relevant in hand. I know this is my chance to capitalize and I need to close this game out before he draws outs. I sacrifice the following creatures to flip Westvale: 2x Matter Reshaper, 1x Human Cleric Token, 1x Birds of Paradise, 1x Thragtusk. That is kinda dumb level of value to turn my board of killing 1 wall a turn to getting over the top for 9 immediately. Like Mutavault I think the times when it will matter will be slim but when it does.. oh boy it'll feel good.
Another mention of a nifty play I pulled against my buddy on Infect. With Drowner of Hope I go to tap down his only attacker. He uses Vines of Vastwood kicked twice thinking he has got me beat. I use mutavault to activate itself and then sacrifice it because it is also a scion... wha wha.
I just expressed the same thoughts two posts above.
Currently I'm running 23 lands and 2x Oath of Nissa maindeck. It's clearly worse than Stirrings but still better than Modern's best blue cantrip (Serum Visions lol.
Works fine for me so far.
I think the land base is actually the part of the deck that has the most room for innovation, as almost everybody here is just copying the landbase of the deck that got top 8 at the GP. The other parts of the deck are super tight with only 2-3 flexspots.
Ideas like Blighted Cataract or Westvale Abbey definetely derserve some testing.
I'm trying 2Impulse instaed of the one flex slot and one land, for now it's working well,impulse saved my ass twice in 6 testing games becouse i needed to path to exile a big creature
I don't think it's worth it. If we want to play more cantrips then we will play Oath of Nissa. The difference between 1 and two mana is huuuge and will we sometimes just need that path or stony silence we would be diluting our otherwise super proactive gameplan by playing anticipate, which let's it do more harm than good.
For me the thing about Oath of Nissa is it makes me wish we could use it's other ability better. Unfortunately none of the planeswalkers in our colors are really things we want to play with.
Can we survive on 22-23 lands rather than 24? I find the land flood to be real late game.
I just expressed the same thoughts two posts above.
Currently I'm running 23 lands and 2x Oath of Nissa maindeck. It's clearly worse than Stirrings but still better than Modern's best blue cantrip (Serum Visions lol.
Works fine for me so far.
I think the land base is actually the part of the deck that has the most room for innovation, as almost everybody here is just copying the landbase of the deck that got top 8 at the GP. The other parts of the deck are super tight with only 2-3 flexspots.
Ideas like Blighted Cataract or Westvale Abbey definetely derserve some testing.
I definitely think Westvale Abbey is worth a test here. It's not about flipping it like it is in Standard. You wil games with it on the back of treating it like a Bitterblossom on turns you have nothing better going on. Just keep pumping out 1/1's. I think we could have games where we will flip it too and because of Stubborn Denial and the Abundance of large threats we have, our opponent may not have the right kill spells. I actually like 24 lands and sure on occasion I get a little flooded but I am almost never mana screwed. This deck is so land hungry that if you start drawing consecutive Smasher and Drowners you need to have the mana to play them.
So I've been playing the deck online and I gotta say I'm amazed on how consistent it is.
I've been looking through the lists here and didn't saw a list with less than 24 lands. After playing a few games I cut a Cavern of Souls and never looked back. Any opinions here?
And on a less serious note:
I had one of the most fun games I ever had in modern yesterday with the deck against U-Tron.
I had a slow start and he got lucky finding Tron early although I quartered the correct land, we trade resources until he resolves an Oblivion Stone and kills my board but Matter Reshaper reveals a Displacer. He plays a Sundering Titan (which was a misplay) and destroyed my only two basic land type lands. I untap with two Eldrazi Temples and a Painland. Blink the Titan to kill two of his own Islands, attack, play a fetch, end turn, blink Titan again during his upkeep to destroy both of his remaining Islands, he concedes.
SO MUCH FUN!
You really trolled him ha ha. I only own 3 Caverns so I have been running 1 Mutavault instead of the 4th and it's been alright so far. It gives me the colorless and occasionally lets me put more pressure (or keep pressure on if they board wiped). I could try a Gavony Township but with this list, if you have dudes onboard you are likely winning anyway and don't need the +1+1 counters (not to mention they get reset by displacer and most of the time you'd rather just blink something for value). I have also been considering Westvale Abbey. We can end up with a board of things we don't care about (Matter Reshaper, Mana Dorks, Scion Tokens etc) and sure it dies to Path but they only have so many of those and we still have Reality Smasher, Drowner and TKS they have to hit with it. I also really like it as a Pseudo-Bitter Blossom effect late game.
Yeah, I'm thinking of putting world breaker back in the main, my meta has a lot of lantern control and I need at least one out besides hoping tks nabs bridge in time.but costing seven instead of six can be relevant...
Remember you can still attack through bridge with Spellskite and Noble Hierarch. In fact most of the time it's a really easy way to lethal them because they can't come up with enough answers to them and you can keep applying damage. I recommend World Breaker in the main for anyone whose meta isn't overflowing with aggro decks though. He is really good and worst case gets sided out (which makes an easy cut slot when you are looking for them). Against the matchups where you do grind he makes a ton of difference even if you just hit a land with him (keeping people off things like Snap Cryptic and such is pretty big).
Something i didn´t get from your post, do you actually think this deck is bad positioned against aggro?.
I´m pretty sure Affinity is bad, but Burn and Infect are not that bad.
This is a topic where i´ve seen players say that this deck has no real bad matchups, to players say that Aggro just crushes you.
I can say the deck is capable of beating several strategies, because of its midranagey nature. Do you feel otherwise?.
I actually think it's different I think Infect and Affinity is actually alright matchups (but you can easily lose from being out raced if you don't have an answer to what they are doing). Burn I think is really bad if you don't have enough of a plan for it. Most of their damage comes from their hand so clogging the board with large blockers doesn't work (and Eldrazi Displacer becomes even less solid). Also without recurring lifegain they can still race you from an empty hand.
Personally I think this deck DOES have bad matchups against Hyper Aggro because they force you to play the control route. You'd much rather pin your ears back like against Midrange and Control and just have at the other player. I classify this deck as a "Battlecruiser" deck. It wants to play like an aggro deck but it uses large midrangey creatures to get it done. It's not as susceptible to things that the other aggro decks are (ie bolt, pyroclasm, lifegain, etc.) but it gets that resilience at the cost of speed. I'd say this deck has a bad matchup against a deck like Elves as well. They go super wide, super fast and if you don't answer the right thing and they don't have a backup, they will likely win. Also saying these are bad matchups isn't like saying that the matchup is like Jund vs Tron. Our "bad" matchups are ones where we are not favored to win and usually ones where we have to become the control deck.
Currently all the control and midrange decks running around in the format are keeping the Aggro decks in check and that lets us slot in and take advantage of that absence.
I have lost a total of 3 matches over 4 tournaments (16 rounds). 2 were Burn and 1 was RG Mono Land Destruction/Blood Moon. Again admittedly there isn't a ton of aggro in my meta but those have always been the harrowing matchups for me.
I think this deck is just that good against the control decks. Anyway @Extraz, I have added 2 Chalices and 3 Leyline for the burn and affinity match up.
What is your sideboard exactly? EE and Grafdigger's have been amazing. Admittedly I have seen 0 Affinity so far in my local meta so I don't know how that matchup feels. I did add the 1 Thragtusk last night and while I didn't face burn, it was money against the decks I did face (tournament report below)
Anyone up to making a Primer for this deck?
Also, anyone have any idea when this deck will get bumped up to competitive?
I think this is technically the Primer. It will likely get bumped to Competitive when it puts up results (remember that this list just barely sprung up at the SCG Open and GP LA&CHA. I think we will see it rise in popularity if the meta stays as slow and grindy as it is now.
Alrighty yall, my DnD group I play with on Tuesday was out of town so I went and hit up one of my LGS for Modern! Below is my list and tournament report for your consumption:
Round 1 Grixis Control (2-1)[1-0]:
Game 1 he got me with a mainboard Anger of the Gods. I couldn't find a Cavern of Souls or good Eldrazi to save my life after that and got stuck in loops of Cryptic Commands as he beat down with Tasigur. Game 2 and 3 were much different. Game 2 he bolted my T1 Hierarch, Terminated my T2 Matter Reshaper (flipped to reveal Mutavault), Crunched in with T3 Smasher followed by T4 Drowner of Hope and T5 Thragtusk. Game 3 I got Displacer and Thragtusk to untap and blinking Thragtusk twice during his end step forced the concession.
Round 2 Jund (2-0)[2-0]:
This was this guy's first time playing Jund and he was steadily running into the realization of how difficult that deck actually is to play. I fought my way through 3 removal spells early but things like Matter Reshaper don't care as much. He dropped a Liliana which I crunched with Smasher and I set up him dropping 2 Goyfs and me dropping Drowner to tap them down and crunch in for lethal. I got a T4 Drowner game 2 and he just doesn't have enough answers for that.
Round 3 Dredge (2-0)[3-0]:
Game 1 He started going off to the races early with a dredge into 2 Narcomebas and a Prized Amalgam. Unfortunately I think he made a grave mistake and attacked into my untapped Matter Reshaper. I blocked and traded with the Prized Amalgam (removing a Bridge from Below from his yard and giving him a 2/2 Zombie) and I revealed Eldrazi Displacer off the top. I then drop TKS and yank his Stinkweed Imp. He now was on 3 lands without any dredgers in the yard. I followed up with Smasher and closed out the game quickly. Game 2 was a game you can attribute the win to taking the correct lines of play. His first dredge for 6 got 3 Narcomeba's but no Bridge from Belows. I had an EE in hand and I could have opted to put it on 2 and blow them up without him getting any additional value out of it. Instead I opted to hold onto them for later when he might have Zombies chumming up the board that I want to remove. I stuck an early TKS and Smasher instead and started crashing in. We got to this final board state. He had 3 Bridges in yard, 2 Narcomeba's and 2 Zombie tokens but was at 8 life. I had a Noble Hierarch, Smasher and TKS. My plan of attack was to drop Drowner of Hope and tap down the 2 Zombies. I'd crash in for a total of 4 and he'd get "a billion" Zombies. I'd then follow up with EE on 0 and blow them up so I could crash in for lethal. I topdecked an Eldrazi Temple however and was able to play my Drowner, tap down the 2 Narcomeba's and then play EE on 0 and destroy the tokens. I think my opponents playstyle and deck were pretty bad though. Dredge decks are fragile in their nature anyway but he wasn't running typical things like Loam to ensure he got his land drops. In addition, he made his way through MOST of his library (had ~10 cards left) in game 2 but I wasn't pressured in the least. He kept trying to race me with Narcomeba's attacking in the air. 2 damage to 9 on the crackback isn't how you beat Eldrazi. The fact I didn't even remotely need Grafdigger's Cage was a huge sign for me that his deck wasn't built properly (as I have seen the good variants do exceedingly well). Best part of it all was that my opponent was SUPER salty after the game about how his deck "dumped" on him (completely ignoring that I yanked a Stinkweed Imp I knew was in hand both games and his deck had almost 0 grind to it). I think we are favored in this matchup altogether though. Narcomeba is great chump to Goyf when you have a ton of bridges in the yard but it just can't keep up with Reality Smasher.
Round 4 Flash Bant Tokens (2-0)[4-0]:
This is a buddy of mine and we have played against each other extensively while I was on Eldrazi & Taxes. In the end his deck is really solid and runs a semi control game plan while making tokens with things like Advent of the Wurm, Blade Splicer (with Resto Angel in the list as well), Voice and Geist and then using a couple of the populate cards (namely the Fog to you and the one that makes things indestructible). It's a pretty solid overall list against the meta as the 5/5 Trample Wurms for 4 do get there. It does absolutely 100% crumble to Eldrazi Displacer though. He knows it, I know it and most of the time when it hits the field and he doesn't have the answer, he just scoops it up. Against Eldrazi & Taxes he can at least attempt to counter it with a Mana Leak but with this list, Cavern of Souls and a faster clock just hoses him completely.
All in all it was a good tournament. There were lots of weird decks running around this meta because it's fairly small (like Soul Sisters and Ad Nauseum) but somehow I dodged all that and ran right into this decks wheelhouse. Man, if I could face Jund every round with this deck I might be alright with that. Swagdaddy was a baller and I think I will keep him in the 1x slot in the SB. His synergy with Displacer, in addition to the immense power he brings on his own is totally worth it. This list just has such raw power potential that it is comically unfair at times to decks that are trying to play fair. The meta could easily speed up again and then we might be in more trouble but my meta loves control with an undying fury so as long as there are competitive control decks, that's what I'll be seeing a lot of.
Til next time. Keep Smashing!
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I think Pascal mentioned that in testing they used Skyspawner and Matter Reshaper interchangably and they initially determined that Matter Reshaper was better (I'd be inclined to believe that because some of my Reshaper flips have been bonkers or he just keeps bashing in for 3 a turn). I do think Skyspawner is on the very edge though and may warrant a spot in the list eventually.
Grixis is easy mode honestly. It's a control deck that doesn't run many sweepers. Sure they have more hard spot removal but it comes at the cost of Lightning Helix which means they burn through their kill spells on things like Matter Reshaper. It's very important to get Reality Smasher to stick against them because they have pretty much no profitable answer to it and it kills all their threats and tramples over thopter tokens in the lists running Pia and Kiran.
I actually think our Affinity matchup isn't too bad. EE does much better against them than Infect, they can't recover from a board wipe like Infect can (where they just hold their next creature in hand until the first one dies). T2 TKS -> T3 Smasher has never lost me a game against them because they simply have no answers. Displacer is also a monster against them by blinking whatever they put plating on or sac ravager to. Stony Silence out of the board is also pretty GG most times.
I think our best route is still trying to get to the following Spellskite->Displacer->Drowner of Hope. If you can ramp quickly enough to those you should be able to win. They REALLY struggle with Drowner since it requires double vines to stop. Bring in counter magic for the pump spells and be sure you kill Spellskites if you can.
This is why cards like Stubborn Denial are good. If they try and jam Blood Moon turn 3 we can counter it. If they try to hold onto it for too long, the chance for us getting it with a TKS and usually apply enough pressure before they finish us (or get our basics into play). The main Blood Moon decks that I have found to be problematic are those that ALSO run land destruction to hit our basics. I do play 1 Waste for those instances though. Having 1 less G source for T1 hasn't really affected my overall experience as of yet.
It's a fine card if that's what you choose to bring in. I don't think it is exactly required though. Sideboards are really based on preference in answers. I actually haven't run into a ton of Blood Moons but the decks that do run them I typically try and just counter it with Stubborn Denial or rip it out of hand with TKS. Ensnaring Bridges problem comes from them getting multiples.. or a Spellskite to protect it. Ensnaring Bridge decks are also not very popular right now.
Look through the last couple pages to see my tournament logs but I'll give you a slight spoiler. I am 14-0-1 against control. That includes Nahiri.
I did the math while I was sitting there (maybe I forgot a creature between the match and the writeup for his side like another mana dork or something). I remember knowing I could swing in but he'd have enough blockers to not die. My out was that I could have selected which creatures he blocked with (outside of Spellskite) and put him to 1. I had the answer for his only out (CoCo) in hand and he'd have been dead on the next turn since I could then blink and tap down his team. Still I admit that I punted that game and with it I never got to a game 3. I am not perfect all the time ha ha.
Ok Ladies and Gents.. I got another couple tournament reports for you! Finally stopped running headlong into Control unfortunately but now I can address other areas of concern and get reps in against other archetypes.
Friday FNM 57 People:
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Bird of Paradise
2x Spellskite
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Thought-knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Drowner of Hope
1x World Breaker
Instants/Sorceries:
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Path to Exile
Lands:
4x Windswept Heath
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Brushlands
2x Yavamaya Coast
1x Westvale Abbey
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Waste
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Engineered Explosives
3x Stubborn Denial
3x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Stony Silence
1x Mark of Asylum
1x Thragtusk
Round 1 Kiki-Chord (2-1)[1-0]:
Game 1 I had to mull to 5 and he got a very fast Kiki combo off. It was through a TKS to take a resto Angel as well. He ripped Chord on his next draw and went off the following turn (He chorded for Resto, blinked his on board Ewit get Chord back and then win on his turn). Game 2 and 3 I managed to play the grindy game and was able to minimize the value of his Voice's and a Grafdiggers Cage stranded 2 CoCo's and a Chord in his hand Game 3.
Round 2 RG Tron (2-0)[2-0]:
Game 1 stick large fat beats, take payoff card with TKS, have lethal through Wurmcoil on following turn. Game 2 dropped Stony Silence early and ripped only payoff card out of his hand. I get Displacer TKS soft lock on his draw step as I close out the game quickly. First time playing RG Tron with this deck and the games went according to plan. As long as they don't magical christmas us or our deck gives us chaff I think we are favored here.
Round 3 RG Tron (0-2)[2-1]:
Ok you know what I was saying before... ug. My opponent got his spellskites on Turn 2 both games and it stopped me from swinging through with the Matter Reshaper and Displacers I had on board. Top that off that I couldn't blink the things I wanted (I did get to hit him for essentially 10 with a TKS game 2 [swing for 4, attempt to blink twice during draw step which gets redirected to Spellskite]). The main issue is he found 2 during game 2 and was able to sit behind them and protect his Ugin til it got to Ult. I scooped when he dropped Ulamogg and destroyed my boardstate. He revealed his hand and had another Ulamogg and another Ugin in hand.. some people get all the luck.
Round 4 Abzan CoCo (0-2)[2-2]:
Game 1 he had the T3 Infinite combo pretty much natural as you draw it up (even played a Seer before he could see what I was on). Game 2 I had him dead on board as long as he didn't rip a Chord or a Finks. (he had Seer on Board and all the other combo pieces in hand when I looked at it with TKS. I had to take a Redcap to just not die (since he had Anafenza and Melira in hand). Ofcourse he ripped it off the top and won.
Ug some very bad beats there at the end... what are you gonna do. I keep getting wrecked by opposing Spellskites. Not being able to tap what we want or blink what we need to is just brutal. I am considering putting some number of Pithing Needles in the Sideboard since they can be found with Ancient Stirrings and it can be useful in multiple matchups (hitting Viscera Seer, Karn, O-Stone, Cranial Plating, Spellskite, Ezuri, Ravager, Inkmoth Nexus and so many more).
Sunday Morning Modern 39 People:
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Bird of Paradise
2x Spellskite
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Thought-knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Drowner of Hope
1x World Breaker
Instants/Sorceries:
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Path to Exile
Lands:
4x Windswept Heath
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Brushlands
2x Yavamaya Coast
1x Westvale Abbey
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Waste
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Engineered Explosives
3x Stubborn Denial
3x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Stony Silence
1x Mark of Asylum
1x Thragtusk
Round 1 Grixis Control (2-0)[1-0]:
So absurd stat for this match to identify how good our control matchup is if played correctly. I won game 1 on 3 spells and game 2 on 5. The rest of my cards and draws were lands. Westvale Abbey sealed me up Game 2 with a bit of Ohrmendhal overkill (he was at 1 but I flipped it for the hell of it because he had no outs and how often do we get to do that. I am now 13-0-1 against control with this list.
Round 2 UR Delver (1-2)[1-1]:
So Game 1 I rofled over him because he got hosed on lands and things I guess. I didn't see enough of his deck to really have him on anything. Saw a bunch of basic Islands (one of which he fetched for after the first Steam Vents) so I thought it was possibly Blue Moon. Game 2 I got punished hard for taking out Paths and he manages to rip a bolt to flip delver and kill me. Game 3 he had essentially the nuts and rode Swiftspear, Vapor Snag, Bolt, Roast to victory. Roast was the primary hurts card in the matchup. Being a budget list he was running a full 4x and as you can expect... it wrecks everything in our deck really. Normally over the coarse of a long game you'd be fine with the 2 for 1. As it stood, you couldn't keep taking the Delver, YP and Swiftspear beats. Ug, oh well.
Round 3 RG Tron (0-2)[1-2]:
Game 1 I got land screwed for the first time in a while. Stuck on 2 lands I was unable to stop what he was doing (I had enough time and threats in opening hand which consisted of both lands that I probably had him dead otherwise). Game 2 I stick a T2 Stoney Silence. He plays a 2nd Tron piece and passes the turn. I use my turn to Ancient Stirrings and find Ghost Quarter which is perfect so I could guarantee to stop his Natural tron and hopefully by me the time to get my TKS's on board and strip anything relevant from hand. Well as it turns out he had natural tron AND redundant pieces for the first 2 he played plus payoff cards. Man I am getting frustrated with my opponents having the nuts. It seems to be happening with stupid consistency.
Round 4 Grixis Control (2-0)[2-2]:
Second verse same as the first? This time I got more spells to play with but it was a total annihilation either way. Put my anti-control marker to 14-0-1 over 7 Tournaments.
Thoughts.. I think I am going to cut a land to 23 and World Breaker from the Main. My total changes might look something like this:
MB:
-1 Land
-1 World Breaker
+2 Eldrazi Skyspawner
SB:
-2 Timely Reinforcements
-1 Mark of Asylum
+2 Pithing Needle
+1 World Breaker
I want to try Skyspawner as another early creature that has the evasion to get around walls like Spellskite. Also it is ramp and another Scion for Drowner later (not to mention Skyspawner makes another Displacer target). I get flooded a LOT more than I'd like as well. I think with 5 dorks and 4 stirrings which can find lands we should be fine at 23 but it'll need testing. I like World Breaker but if I am reducing the land count I might as well reduce the curve. He also hasn't been 100% vital to my control matchup. As for Timely, they have just never come up in a spot to be good. Sure they might be good against burn but that has been the only matchup where they have come in for. I think I might just surrender the Burn matchup as being bad and give myself better odds of beating other decks.
Yeah I am running them. I hit it game 2 as well but he had a Maelstrom Pulse and then ripped an Ewit off the top to use it again on my double Reshapers that I was killing him with. It was a bit of bad luck as well (I didn't hit a large eldrazi for a while) and as I stated, I totally misplayed at the end there not thinking of making him block with Seer. I just need to play the matchup more so I get reps in. There are also several other matchups I'd like to get reps against but folks at my LGS love their control too much. To give you an idea of my meta here are my numbers since I picked up this deck:
5 Tournaments:
15-4-1
Jeskai Control: 3-0-1
Grixis Control: 5-0
Burn: 0-2
Infect: 1-0
Bant Tokens: 1-0
Merfolk: 1-0
Dredge: 1-0
Jund: 1-0
RG Land D: 0-1
Abzan Coco: 0-1
Goblins: 1-0
Mono U Tron: 1-0
So I mean 60% of my matches have come against Midrange or Control decks which I have gone 11-0-1 against since they are this decks wheel house. I'm totally fine with that as I am raking in prize money hand over fist but I definitely need more reps against other decks that way when I do face them in larger spots that I am prepared.
Thursday Night Modern (47 people):
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Bird of Paradise
2x Spellskite
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Thought-knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Drowner of Hope
1x World Breaker
Instants/Sorceries:
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Path to Exile
Lands:
4x Windswept Heath
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Brushlands
2x Yavamaya Coast
1x Mutavault
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Waste
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Engineered Explosives
3x Stubborn Denial
3x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Stony Silence
1x Mark of Asylum
1x Thragtusk
Round 1 Cruel Control (2-1)[1-0]:
I seem to play this player about once a week and he is always on some variant of Grixis usually. This week it was Cruel Control. Him and I play often enough (even in this larger player pool) that he said he assembled his deck this week explicitly hoping he wouldn't run into me and my Bant Eldrazi. Game 1 went pretty much according to plan. I stuck a Cavern of Souls and started churning out value that he couldn't find any responses for. Game 2 he used a T4 Crumble to Dust on my Cavern and with some good to lucky top-decks he got his way into the win. Game 3 I proceeded to drop threats through removal and eventually got us both to top deck mode (let his visions resolve then cast an Uncounterable TKS and verify his hand as being trash afterwards). I then stuck a Thragtusk and Eldrazi Displacer and trololololed my way to victory.
Round 2 Abzan Coco (0-2)[1-1]:
Game 1 was horrid. He had essentially natural T3 infinite life and I drew 2 spellskites and all lands as answers. Game 2 I should have won with a very very complicated line of play that I screwed up. I'll go over the logistics with yall so that maybe you'll remember it if it ever happens to you. So I have him at 5 life. He has a Spellskite, Melira, Seer, Anafenza and Noble Hierarch in play. I have 2 Drowner of Hopes 4 Scion tokens and a Displacer that I just topdecked and played. I have enough mana to blink 3 things... however I also have a stubborn denial in hand and my opponent has 1 card in their hand (they know I have Denial as I found it off a Matter Reshaper). In the end if I try to blink my Drowner of Hope he can redirect to spellskite twice and go down to 1. Even if I tap down as many as possible with the scions, he'd still have enough to block the attackers. Likewise if try and sacrifice Scion tokens he redirects 2 to Spellskite and has 2 creatures back to block the 2 Drowner of Hope and then he will be able to untap. Instead I pass the turn and him and I both know that he has to find a Kitchen Finks and has 4 available (Scry) triggers to find it. He finds it 3 down and goes infinite which we just don't have an answer to. Here was the play I should have made. I sac the scion tokens to tap down all but Seer and Anafenza. He is forced to block or die so he now has to find 2 pieces for the infinite combo and I'd have him dead on the following turn. CoCo would normally be his out there but with Stubborn denial up with Ferocious it wouldn't resolve. Oh well. Live and learn I guess. This matchup feels really awkward to bad. I really wish we had a way to win through infinite life.. oh well.
Round 3 Mono U Tron (2-0)[2-1]:
Game 1 I go T2 Matter Reshaper, T3 TKS (taking Mindslaver and seeing he has nothing good), T4 Cavern->Smasher. That pretty much sealed the game from there. He did get to Cyclonic Rift my team and it did stall a bit but he just couldn't come back. Game 2 I proceeded on the beats plan. He did resolve a Mindslaver against me but post board I have very little he could do to hurt me (I had all beaters in hand). He finds a Platinum Angel which makes me think for a moment if I have an out to it. After a few seconds I realized I did and kept playing (World Breaker is the out). I then stick a board of TKS, Thragtusk and Eldrazi Displacer onboard. I gain a rediculous life total to keep myself from dying to Angel and I soft lock him out of his draw step. He did pseudo punt by letting me take a Cyclonic Rift which he totally should have cast because I didn't have a Cavern of Souls and while I had enough mana to blink TKS a few times, he gets a blind draw and I have only 1 blink for his following turn if everything resolves uncountered. He then just scoops when he realized his mistake and it was his last rift. (At first he didn't realize the lock I had him on and at EOT he used Academy Ruins and put Mindslaver back on top his library. I responded "Still at End Step, blink TKS. Draw your card first aaaaaaaaand its gone.")
Round 4 Jeskai Control (2-0)[3-1]:
I like this guy as a player but this is the same guy who insisted he has a favorable matchup against me despite me winning every game we have played of this matchup. Games themselves were fun but not a ton worth elaborating on. Thragtusk was a monster again. Grafdiggers was insanely awkward for him blanking double Snapcasters in his game 2 hand. These matchups are all about pacing. Don't barf all your threats onto board. Make them answer and then play the next one. Another fun (but ended up irrelevant) play during game 2 was I flipped Mark of Asylum after he bolted my Matter Reshaper. He drew no more Burn spells and I had a Cage out so it never actually mattered but that could have instantly made his removal awful. In the end I closed out game 2 because he was on the ropes and I went to blink Drowner of Hope. In response he helix and then bolts it. I sacrifice the 2 original scions and tap my last mana to blink it again. 2 turns later he was dead.
All in all another successful showing. I really want to find an Abzan Coco player and grind that matchup a bit to get a better feel for our role there and maybe be more confident in my keeps and SB against it (also all those tricky lines of play against that deck). The biggest breakout star this week has been the Swagmaster Thragdaddy. Thragtusk, I still have yet to face Burn which is the matchup he was initially intended for but because my local meta is so full of Midrange and Control (when he comes in as well), he has been really pulling the weight. The next card I am going to test is Westvale Abbey for the reasons I have mentioned before. There are just too many threats that require a "Path" in decks that run it for me to care if it flips. It is also excellent against Control as well. I was playtesting with a buddy last night after the tournament and got him out of actual cards (he was on Jeskai Control). He has a couple Wall of Omens in play but he has nothing relevant in hand. I know this is my chance to capitalize and I need to close this game out before he draws outs. I sacrifice the following creatures to flip Westvale: 2x Matter Reshaper, 1x Human Cleric Token, 1x Birds of Paradise, 1x Thragtusk. That is kinda dumb level of value to turn my board of killing 1 wall a turn to getting over the top for 9 immediately. Like Mutavault I think the times when it will matter will be slim but when it does.. oh boy it'll feel good.
Another mention of a nifty play I pulled against my buddy on Infect. With Drowner of Hope I go to tap down his only attacker. He uses Vines of Vastwood kicked twice thinking he has got me beat. I use mutavault to activate itself and then sacrifice it because it is also a scion... wha wha.
For me the thing about Oath of Nissa is it makes me wish we could use it's other ability better. Unfortunately none of the planeswalkers in our colors are really things we want to play with.
I definitely think Westvale Abbey is worth a test here. It's not about flipping it like it is in Standard. You wil games with it on the back of treating it like a Bitterblossom on turns you have nothing better going on. Just keep pumping out 1/1's. I think we could have games where we will flip it too and because of Stubborn Denial and the Abundance of large threats we have, our opponent may not have the right kill spells. I actually like 24 lands and sure on occasion I get a little flooded but I am almost never mana screwed. This deck is so land hungry that if you start drawing consecutive Smasher and Drowners you need to have the mana to play them.
You really trolled him ha ha. I only own 3 Caverns so I have been running 1 Mutavault instead of the 4th and it's been alright so far. It gives me the colorless and occasionally lets me put more pressure (or keep pressure on if they board wiped). I could try a Gavony Township but with this list, if you have dudes onboard you are likely winning anyway and don't need the +1+1 counters (not to mention they get reset by displacer and most of the time you'd rather just blink something for value). I have also been considering Westvale Abbey. We can end up with a board of things we don't care about (Matter Reshaper, Mana Dorks, Scion Tokens etc) and sure it dies to Path but they only have so many of those and we still have Reality Smasher, Drowner and TKS they have to hit with it. I also really like it as a Pseudo-Bitter Blossom effect late game.
Remember you can still attack through bridge with Spellskite and Noble Hierarch. In fact most of the time it's a really easy way to lethal them because they can't come up with enough answers to them and you can keep applying damage. I recommend World Breaker in the main for anyone whose meta isn't overflowing with aggro decks though. He is really good and worst case gets sided out (which makes an easy cut slot when you are looking for them). Against the matchups where you do grind he makes a ton of difference even if you just hit a land with him (keeping people off things like Snap Cryptic and such is pretty big).
I actually think it's different I think Infect and Affinity is actually alright matchups (but you can easily lose from being out raced if you don't have an answer to what they are doing). Burn I think is really bad if you don't have enough of a plan for it. Most of their damage comes from their hand so clogging the board with large blockers doesn't work (and Eldrazi Displacer becomes even less solid). Also without recurring lifegain they can still race you from an empty hand.
Personally I think this deck DOES have bad matchups against Hyper Aggro because they force you to play the control route. You'd much rather pin your ears back like against Midrange and Control and just have at the other player. I classify this deck as a "Battlecruiser" deck. It wants to play like an aggro deck but it uses large midrangey creatures to get it done. It's not as susceptible to things that the other aggro decks are (ie bolt, pyroclasm, lifegain, etc.) but it gets that resilience at the cost of speed. I'd say this deck has a bad matchup against a deck like Elves as well. They go super wide, super fast and if you don't answer the right thing and they don't have a backup, they will likely win. Also saying these are bad matchups isn't like saying that the matchup is like Jund vs Tron. Our "bad" matchups are ones where we are not favored to win and usually ones where we have to become the control deck.
Currently all the control and midrange decks running around in the format are keeping the Aggro decks in check and that lets us slot in and take advantage of that absence.
I have lost a total of 3 matches over 4 tournaments (16 rounds). 2 were Burn and 1 was RG Mono Land Destruction/Blood Moon. Again admittedly there isn't a ton of aggro in my meta but those have always been the harrowing matchups for me.
What is your sideboard exactly? EE and Grafdigger's have been amazing. Admittedly I have seen 0 Affinity so far in my local meta so I don't know how that matchup feels. I did add the 1 Thragtusk last night and while I didn't face burn, it was money against the decks I did face (tournament report below)
I think this is technically the Primer. It will likely get bumped to Competitive when it puts up results (remember that this list just barely sprung up at the SCG Open and GP LA&CHA. I think we will see it rise in popularity if the meta stays as slow and grindy as it is now.
Alrighty yall, my DnD group I play with on Tuesday was out of town so I went and hit up one of my LGS for Modern! Below is my list and tournament report for your consumption:
Tuesday Night Modern 25 People:
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Bird of Paradise
2x Spellskite
4x Matter Reshaper
4x Eldrazi Displacer
4x Thought-knot Seer
4x Reality Smasher
4x Drowner of Hope
1x World Breaker
Instants/Sorceries:
4x Ancient Stirrings
4x Path to Exile
Lands:
4x Windswept Heath
4x Eldrazi Temple
3x Cavern of Souls
3x Brushlands
2x Yavimaya Coast
1x Mutavault
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Temple Garden
1x Breeding Pool
1x Forest
1x Plains
1x Waste
1x Ghost Quarter
3x Engineered Explosives
3x Stubborn Denial
3x Grafdigger's Cage
2x Timely Reinforcements
2x Stony Silence
1x Mark of Asylum
1x Thragtusk
Round 1 Grixis Control (2-1)[1-0]:
Game 1 he got me with a mainboard Anger of the Gods. I couldn't find a Cavern of Souls or good Eldrazi to save my life after that and got stuck in loops of Cryptic Commands as he beat down with Tasigur. Game 2 and 3 were much different. Game 2 he bolted my T1 Hierarch, Terminated my T2 Matter Reshaper (flipped to reveal Mutavault), Crunched in with T3 Smasher followed by T4 Drowner of Hope and T5 Thragtusk. Game 3 I got Displacer and Thragtusk to untap and blinking Thragtusk twice during his end step forced the concession.
Round 2 Jund (2-0)[2-0]:
This was this guy's first time playing Jund and he was steadily running into the realization of how difficult that deck actually is to play. I fought my way through 3 removal spells early but things like Matter Reshaper don't care as much. He dropped a Liliana which I crunched with Smasher and I set up him dropping 2 Goyfs and me dropping Drowner to tap them down and crunch in for lethal. I got a T4 Drowner game 2 and he just doesn't have enough answers for that.
Round 3 Dredge (2-0)[3-0]:
Game 1 He started going off to the races early with a dredge into 2 Narcomebas and a Prized Amalgam. Unfortunately I think he made a grave mistake and attacked into my untapped Matter Reshaper. I blocked and traded with the Prized Amalgam (removing a Bridge from Below from his yard and giving him a 2/2 Zombie) and I revealed Eldrazi Displacer off the top. I then drop TKS and yank his Stinkweed Imp. He now was on 3 lands without any dredgers in the yard. I followed up with Smasher and closed out the game quickly. Game 2 was a game you can attribute the win to taking the correct lines of play. His first dredge for 6 got 3 Narcomeba's but no Bridge from Belows. I had an EE in hand and I could have opted to put it on 2 and blow them up without him getting any additional value out of it. Instead I opted to hold onto them for later when he might have Zombies chumming up the board that I want to remove. I stuck an early TKS and Smasher instead and started crashing in. We got to this final board state. He had 3 Bridges in yard, 2 Narcomeba's and 2 Zombie tokens but was at 8 life. I had a Noble Hierarch, Smasher and TKS. My plan of attack was to drop Drowner of Hope and tap down the 2 Zombies. I'd crash in for a total of 4 and he'd get "a billion" Zombies. I'd then follow up with EE on 0 and blow them up so I could crash in for lethal. I topdecked an Eldrazi Temple however and was able to play my Drowner, tap down the 2 Narcomeba's and then play EE on 0 and destroy the tokens. I think my opponents playstyle and deck were pretty bad though. Dredge decks are fragile in their nature anyway but he wasn't running typical things like Loam to ensure he got his land drops. In addition, he made his way through MOST of his library (had ~10 cards left) in game 2 but I wasn't pressured in the least. He kept trying to race me with Narcomeba's attacking in the air. 2 damage to 9 on the crackback isn't how you beat Eldrazi. The fact I didn't even remotely need Grafdigger's Cage was a huge sign for me that his deck wasn't built properly (as I have seen the good variants do exceedingly well). Best part of it all was that my opponent was SUPER salty after the game about how his deck "dumped" on him (completely ignoring that I yanked a Stinkweed Imp I knew was in hand both games and his deck had almost 0 grind to it). I think we are favored in this matchup altogether though. Narcomeba is great chump to Goyf when you have a ton of bridges in the yard but it just can't keep up with Reality Smasher.
Round 4 Flash Bant Tokens (2-0)[4-0]:
This is a buddy of mine and we have played against each other extensively while I was on Eldrazi & Taxes. In the end his deck is really solid and runs a semi control game plan while making tokens with things like Advent of the Wurm, Blade Splicer (with Resto Angel in the list as well), Voice and Geist and then using a couple of the populate cards (namely the Fog to you and the one that makes things indestructible). It's a pretty solid overall list against the meta as the 5/5 Trample Wurms for 4 do get there. It does absolutely 100% crumble to Eldrazi Displacer though. He knows it, I know it and most of the time when it hits the field and he doesn't have the answer, he just scoops it up. Against Eldrazi & Taxes he can at least attempt to counter it with a Mana Leak but with this list, Cavern of Souls and a faster clock just hoses him completely.
All in all it was a good tournament. There were lots of weird decks running around this meta because it's fairly small (like Soul Sisters and Ad Nauseum) but somehow I dodged all that and ran right into this decks wheelhouse. Man, if I could face Jund every round with this deck I might be alright with that. Swagdaddy was a baller and I think I will keep him in the 1x slot in the SB. His synergy with Displacer, in addition to the immense power he brings on his own is totally worth it. This list just has such raw power potential that it is comically unfair at times to decks that are trying to play fair. The meta could easily speed up again and then we might be in more trouble but my meta loves control with an undying fury so as long as there are competitive control decks, that's what I'll be seeing a lot of.
Til next time. Keep Smashing!