Best to keep in all points of interaction post board, Qasali Pridemage hits Ghirapur Aether Grid which is a potential sideboard card from them if they anticipate Stony Silence. Spellskite protects your soft lock pieces from cards like Echoing Truth/Path to Exiles from their board.
It annoys me that Kelvin Chew doesn't get credit for his pioneering of spell queller in the deck.
I bounce ideas of Kelvin frequently and take his advice on the deck over almost anyone's. Kelvin came out with the exact same record in the MOCs as Rubin and missed top 8 on breakers.
If you follow Kelvin on FB he'll periodically post pictures of his 5-0 league lists. For the most part just the board has been changing lately after going down to 2x Retreat and adding the 3rd Scooze in the main.
Like where the boards at with the exception of Ravenous Trap.. the card is just far too narrow in my opinion where Surgical has a ton of applications.
If yes, I ask if they're okay with me not shuffling between Triggers/Knight activations. If yes, I pull my lands to the front and arrange them in the order I'll use them to combo, go through the first few iterations of tap your blockers and then floating mana if necessary with a dork. Usually once Knight gets to about a 15/15 with Kessig and Red Mana floating they concede. If they're not okay with me not shuffling between Triggers/Knight activations I go through everything manually.. which is pretty annoying.
If no, I'm a lot slower to walk them through it with them. I helps them to understand what's going on so I never have to do it again.
And then sometimes you just go Knight on 2 and Coralhelm on 3 and your opponent is smart enough to just scoop and save everyone time.
I also want to draw your attention to a list that just 5-0'd a daily that eschews the Knightfall Combo and even plays an AWESOME mainboard Voidmage Prodigy alongside Meddling Mage and Reflector Mage:
Sure! I'm interested the most in how fauna shaman and geist played. I just can't seem to make them work, so any information about those will be helpful
geist I was mostly experimenting with never even got to cast him because the match-ups just weren't good for him. Fauna shaman won me a lot of games against infect. Getting Qasali Pridemage to blow up inkmoth nexus or getting spell quellers at instant speed to counter spell or block infect creatures was really useful. I was also able to get scavenging ooze to eat up my opponents Graveyard so he couldn't delve.
I was never impressed with Geist in the shell. Dork on 1 into Shaman is a fantastic Turn 2 play against a lot of the decks in the format. Turn 3 that opens up: Queller, Kataki, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Qasali Pridemage, Spellskite, Izzet Staticaster.
I've found so many situations that I wanted a singleton Eternal Witness along side the the Shaman package to re-buy a Path, Retreat, Company or singleton toolbox piece and it's tested out nicely so far. Other than that I've dialed Unified will back to a 2-of nice to have for extremely problematic MU's (Ad Naus, Titanshift & Tron), cut Quarter from the board for a Bojuka Bog which I'm not entirely sure I love as it's a turn 3 play at it's earliest against Dredge with a Turn 2 Knight.
I think that you should consider running chord instead of evolution. Chord is better at finding 2 drops and has better synergy with collected company. As ludafish said, 23 coco hits is too low, you want something around 27-28 even with the scry. I mean, regular coco lists run x2 courser and x3 retreat and still need 27-28 creatures to make collected worth it. I would run this noncreatures:
That way you have a total of 9 removal spells (nahiri, path and 3 helix in the sideboard) and have three more creatures. Just two retreat are enough, nahiri serves the same purpose.
For the lands, I think that kessig is better in your list. You're running red, courser, spellskite, selfless and the ETB tapped clause of steppe is awkward. I wouldn't run gavony unless you decide to go for the full set of collected companies. As ludafish already said, cut some shocklands, 4-5 are enough.
Is Nahiri honestly even that beneficial here and worth shaving on your only out some of the combo decks in the format G1. I understand the power the card holds in Grindier MU's (BGx/UWR Control) via the +2/-2 but honestly, the -8 serves little to no purpose here and it's a 4 drop in an extremely aggressive meta attacking you from every angle imaginable.
Maybe I'm in the minority but I'm under the impression this deck could find itself climbing into tier 2 if more people were focused on what was working (lists like Kelvins + the other WMCQ lists).
I was thinking of a maindeck looking something like this (I can't seem to get the deck tags to work):
7 Dorks
3 Fauna Shaman, 3 Voice, 1 each Skite, Scooze, Selfless Spirit and Pridemage
4 Knight, 3 Courser, 3 Tracker
4 Path, 3 Retreat, 4 Company
Stock manabase and sideboard.
The idea for a list like this came up when I played against a Naya Big Zoo list on MTGO that played Tracker, and I remembered that Courser and Knight are cards that exist, and those any combination of those three on the field is huge synergy, so I'm just trying to see if their's a shell for them and how playable the resulting deck is. I will say, for this kind of list to succeed, the metagame would have to contain a very large proportion of grindy decks, and since this is a Company deck with Scooze, those are already decent matchups, so this is probably just over the top. Also, I'm not sure if taking out the Spell Quellers entirely is a great idea, but I'll definitely test both this and a more stock list when I can.
I would drop Shaman without Queller. Tracker is fine against the grinder decks but I don't think the deck needs more power there. Just making good MU's better and the bad ones worse.
I am glad I was able to spark a conversation. Big mana is an issue and Bant Eldrazi doesn't feel too good either (although miles better than Titanshift). The thing is that we need some sort of response against them and Titan + infinitevalakut activation is bound to kill our field eventually. Unified Will sounds super spicy against that kind of matchup, but it feels lackluster against Eldrazi. Are there other land hate or heavy mana spells that we can use?
Unified Will is a nod at "Less interactive" that negate misses in certain instances (Prime Time being the best example), Eldrazi isn't a MU where you'd bring in Counterspells to begin with. I personally haven't had issues with the Bant Eldrazi MU at all. Knight, Voice, Finks gum up the board effectively, save your removal for threats your creatures cannot handle like Displacer & Drowner before pointing it at Smasher & Seer.
Reminder that Kor firewalker is not protected from valakut triggers. Valakut is a land and therefore is colorless
Kor Firewalker in general is just too narrow of a SB card for the open field that Modern is right now. Between Kitchen Finks and Blessed Alliance you have so much versatility across MUs, Firewalker just isn't worth the time or the space.
I'm 99% sure that worship works against valakut, but please someone confirm. Better if paired with geist or selfless spirit, only a lock with sigarda/kor firewalker.
Mindcensor is not super good because titanshift runs mainboard 4 pyroclasm + 4 izzet charm. Worship, negate (for scapeshift) and the combo should be enough to win more than a 10% of games. Queller also hits important pieces (ramp and shift)
Against dredge, ghostly prison. If you're not running that because of coco, bojuka and staticaster should help. The tron players at my LGS (there are three of them) are all missing for some reason and I haven't played against tron in a long time, but negate and ghost quarter should slow them a bit. Hierarch into queller can also hit their land searching cards (things like sylvan scrying when on the play). Queller can eat kozilek's return and oblivion stone, if we didn't have T1 acceleration. All of them are miserable matchups, but the tools are definitely there to win from time to time
Worship works against Valakut. However without a hexproof creature they can easily board wipe with a single Titan swing. Traditional Scapeshift, where Quarter is relevant is far less played currently than Titanshift. Titanshift is typically on 2-3 Anger MD and 4 Bolts, making a timely Mincensor that can be protected via Skite, Spirit & Queller much easier.
I have the same experience as the guys above. The fact that we have surprise flying blockers makes the affinity matchup much better than for other archetypes. I am just struggling with ghirapur aether grid, but besides that, it doesn't feel that bad.
I am struggling though with Titanshift and in a lesser degree Dredge and Tron. Titanshift is the dread of my existence and I dont know what to do against it. I swear I've played 10 matches against it and gone 1-9 (the victory was mainly because the guy was just drawing blanks). How do you guys play it?
Definitely seeing the same issue with big mana, which is expected with this style of deck. Not quite 10/90% but definitely in the negative. The Combo is pretty important here within the first 4 turns of the game and I will mull aggressively sometimes trying to find Retreat. Negate gives you a bit of leverage against Tron, same with Ghost Quarters.. Unfortunately both are fairly lackluster against Titanshift.
If either made up a large % of the meta right now I could very easily see finding space for 1-2 Mindcensors in the board. Could also test out Unified Will in the Negate slot as it could be far more effective vs. Titanshift while staying relevant in a number of MU's outside of Burn.
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MD:
Path to Exile - the most obvious point of interaction MD
Spell Queller - Snagging Retract/Paladin/Sram specifically
Qasali Pridemage - Only target worth hitting is Mox Opal
Scavenging Ooze - Hits Noxious Revival targets
Post board options:
Negate - Generic Answer to Retract
Unified Will - Feels somewhat risky but hits all problem cards.. probably wouldn't keep it in on the draw.
Stony Silence - Slows them down, doesn't kill them
Eidolon of Rhetoric - Best storm hate on a body
Kataki, War's Wage - Potential to slow the deck down, can easily be played around
Engineered Explosives - Set this puppy on 0 and just wait for retract
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - Another great piece of storm hate
Best to keep in all points of interaction post board, Qasali Pridemage hits Ghirapur Aether Grid which is a potential sideboard card from them if they anticipate Stony Silence. Spellskite protects your soft lock pieces from cards like Echoing Truth/Path to Exiles from their board.
I bounce ideas of Kelvin frequently and take his advice on the deck over almost anyone's. Kelvin came out with the exact same record in the MOCs as Rubin and missed top 8 on breakers.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/552981#paper
2 Spellskite
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Knight of the Reliquary
4 Noble Hierarch
2 Qasali Pridemage
4 Scavenging Ooze
2 Selfless Spirit
4 Spell Queller
1 Vendilion Clique
2 Courser of Kruphix
Lands (22)
3 Forest
1 Plains
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Breeding Pool
1 Flooded Strand
1 Gavony Township
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Kessig Wolf Run
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
2 Retreat to Coralhelm
4 Collected Company
4 Path to Exile
2 Izzet Staticaster
3 Kitchen Finks
3 Reflector Mage
2 Negate
2 Blessed Alliance
2 Unified Will
1 Bojuka bog
Finks is just a sticky threat that plays well with Company and happens to do work in the Burn MU. I have no idea on the Will/Negate split..
Agree on Bog.
Like where the boards at with the exception of Ravenous Trap.. the card is just far too narrow in my opinion where Surgical has a ton of applications.
If yes, I ask if they're okay with me not shuffling between Triggers/Knight activations. If yes, I pull my lands to the front and arrange them in the order I'll use them to combo, go through the first few iterations of tap your blockers and then floating mana if necessary with a dork. Usually once Knight gets to about a 15/15 with Kessig and Red Mana floating they concede. If they're not okay with me not shuffling between Triggers/Knight activations I go through everything manually.. which is pretty annoying.
If no, I'm a lot slower to walk them through it with them. I helps them to understand what's going on so I never have to do it again.
And then sometimes you just go Knight on 2 and Coralhelm on 3 and your opponent is smart enough to just scoop and save everyone time.
Bant Wizards essentially.. Voidmage Prodigy is actually pretty awesome.. the list of playable 3CMC or less wizards in Modern is pretty funny too:
Qasali Pridemage
Aven Mindcensor
Reflector Mage
Meddling Mage
Snapcaster Mage
Vendilion Clique
Burrenton Forge-Tender
Izzet Staticaster
Mangara of Corondor
Magus of the Moon
Dark Confidant
Now if they would just errata all Shamans to Wizards, then you're getting somewhere.
I was never impressed with Geist in the shell. Dork on 1 into Shaman is a fantastic Turn 2 play against a lot of the decks in the format. Turn 3 that opens up: Queller, Kataki, Eidolon of Rhetoric, Qasali Pridemage, Spellskite, Izzet Staticaster.
1x Breeding Pool
2x Flooded Strand
3x Forest
1x Gavony Township
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Hallowed Fountain
1x Horizon Canopy
1x Kessig Wolf Run
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Plains
1x Stomping Ground
1x Temple Garden
4x Windswept Heath
Creature (27)
3x Birds of Paradise
1x Courser of Kruphix
1x Eternal Witness
3x Fauna Shaman
4x Knight of the Reliquary
4x Noble Hierarch
1x Qasali Pridemage
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Selfless Spirit
4x Spell Queller
1x Spellskite
3x Voice of Resurgence
4x Collected Company
4x Path to Exile
Enchantment (3)
3x Retreat to Coralhelm
2x Blessed Alliance
1x Bojuka Bog
1x Eidolon of Rhetoric
2x Izzet Staticaster
1x Kataki, War's Wage
3x Kitchen Finks
1x Scavenging Ooze
1x Selfless Spirit
2x Unified Will
1x Spellskite
I've found so many situations that I wanted a singleton Eternal Witness along side the the Shaman package to re-buy a Path, Retreat, Company or singleton toolbox piece and it's tested out nicely so far. Other than that I've dialed Unified will back to a 2-of nice to have for extremely problematic MU's (Ad Naus, Titanshift & Tron), cut Quarter from the board for a Bojuka Bog which I'm not entirely sure I love as it's a turn 3 play at it's earliest against Dredge with a Turn 2 Knight.
Is Nahiri honestly even that beneficial here and worth shaving on your only out some of the combo decks in the format G1. I understand the power the card holds in Grindier MU's (BGx/UWR Control) via the +2/-2 but honestly, the -8 serves little to no purpose here and it's a 4 drop in an extremely aggressive meta attacking you from every angle imaginable.
Maybe I'm in the minority but I'm under the impression this deck could find itself climbing into tier 2 if more people were focused on what was working (lists like Kelvins + the other WMCQ lists).
I would drop Shaman without Queller. Tracker is fine against the grinder decks but I don't think the deck needs more power there. Just making good MU's better and the bad ones worse.
Unified Will is a nod at "Less interactive" that negate misses in certain instances (Prime Time being the best example), Eldrazi isn't a MU where you'd bring in Counterspells to begin with. I personally haven't had issues with the Bant Eldrazi MU at all. Knight, Voice, Finks gum up the board effectively, save your removal for threats your creatures cannot handle like Displacer & Drowner before pointing it at Smasher & Seer.
Kor Firewalker in general is just too narrow of a SB card for the open field that Modern is right now. Between Kitchen Finks and Blessed Alliance you have so much versatility across MUs, Firewalker just isn't worth the time or the space.
Worship works against Valakut. However without a hexproof creature they can easily board wipe with a single Titan swing. Traditional Scapeshift, where Quarter is relevant is far less played currently than Titanshift. Titanshift is typically on 2-3 Anger MD and 4 Bolts, making a timely Mincensor that can be protected via Skite, Spirit & Queller much easier.
Definitely seeing the same issue with big mana, which is expected with this style of deck. Not quite 10/90% but definitely in the negative. The Combo is pretty important here within the first 4 turns of the game and I will mull aggressively sometimes trying to find Retreat. Negate gives you a bit of leverage against Tron, same with Ghost Quarters.. Unfortunately both are fairly lackluster against Titanshift.
If either made up a large % of the meta right now I could very easily see finding space for 1-2 Mindcensors in the board. Could also test out Unified Will in the Negate slot as it could be far more effective vs. Titanshift while staying relevant in a number of MU's outside of Burn.