1) I already wrote about this a lot; check out my past posts. tldr Angelic Blessing is a lot better than it looks, e.g. with Shambling Vent. I would play it without Mirran Crusader. If it wasn't for the prevalence of Death's Shadow I'd cut Mirran Crusader for some combination of Kitchen Finks and Tidehollow Sculler.
2) If I knew I was going to play against lots of Tron of any variety, I would probably rethink my deck choice. Ghost Quarter is a pretty good card against regular Tron; however I think it's bad against Eldrazi Tron. I used to play 24 land with 2 Ghost Quarter main so maybe I would go back to that.
Honestly though: Tron decks are going to be one of your worst matchups unless you go full Hatebears with 4 GQ, Leonin Arbiter, etc so I'm not sure there's a lot you can do without essentially switching decks. I wouldn't want to play this deck in a Tron-heavy meta. I actually wouldn't want to play in Tron-heavy meta at all, haha. I'm just hoping to dodge Eldrazi Tron in tournaments. I think regular Tron is real bad against Death's Shadow and generally worse than Eldrazi so it has been pushed out of the competitive meta.
I do sort of want a second Surgical but it might just be because I lost against Living End then beat Ad Nauseam and Amulet Titan with Surgical. Otherwise I never sided it in. Survivorship bias?
Against Burn I sideboarded:
-3 Thoughtseize
-4 Dark Confidant
+3 Collective Brutality
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Gideon of the Trials
+1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
+1 Celestial Purge
I didn't play against CoCo but my plan is:
-4 Inquisition of Kozilek
-4 Liliana of the Veil
-1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
+3 Collective Brutality
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
+1 Shadow of Doubt
+1 Aven Mindcensor
I could even see also boarding in Pithing Needle or Surgical for Thoughtseize or Elspeth but I haven't tried it yet.
Split the finals of the PPTQ today! 4-1-1 in the Swiss. I got $100 cash and box of Modern Masters 2017. Opponent took RPTQ invite and 12 packs. I played the following list:
R1 Burn 2-1
G1 I killed myself by playing a spell into Eidolon of the Great Revel at 2 life with lethal on the table. LOL. Time to tighten up. G2 and 3 I had Collective Brutality (thanks, sideboard!) and won easily.
R2 Living End 0-2
Both games I was a removal spell or two away from stabilizing but didn't get there. My sideboard has almost no relevant cards so it was rough.
R3 Grixis Death's Shadow 2-0
I wrecked this guy without drawing Mirran Crusader. Liliana, Lingering Souls, and Path were enough in both games.
R4 Mono Red Goblins 2-0
G1 he forgot about a Mutavault and made an attack that cost him his entire board. G2 I had removal into Kalitas into Elspeth for a casual 6/7 flying lifelink.
R5 Eldrazi Tron 2-0
This was the best match by far. G1 the board ended up as my Bob with me at 2 life and him at 2 life. I flipped a land and attacked for the win. G3 I was at 1 life against his Endbringer so I had to suicide a Shambling Vent into it. I also had double Lingering Souls and he died in the skies, without topdecking Reality Smasher or Walking Ballista. Earlier in the game I double blocked another Endbringer with Linvala and Mutavault and then cast Anguished Unmaking on his 5/5 Ballista before damage. Weeeeee
R6 ID
Quarters - Ad Nauseam 2-1
G1 he got me. G2 and G3 I was able to discard him into oblivion and surgical Ad Nauseam.
Semis - Affinity 2-1
G1 he had a great draw with double Plating, Etched Champion, and Ravager. G2 and 3 I just had a ton of removal and was able to keep him under control. Copter and Mutavault were MVPs in g2 to keep Etched Champion from being relevant.
Finals - Amulet Titan 2-0
We split the prizes but we played for fun. I absolutely destroyed him in both games. G1 he couldn't find a second green source for a while. When he finally did I had Path for his Primeval Titan and a lethal attack the following turn. G2 I had a bunch of discard and was able to Surgical his Titans.
The deck ran incredibly well. The 3 Collective Brutality in the board were stupidly good and I'm very happy with that change. Before the event I decided I really didn't want to lose to Burn or CoCo and I think 4 Brutality after board is the best way to accomplish that goal.
One reason I can play 4 Mutavault is I have 4 Copter to go with them. Not only is Copter easy to cast but the looting helps find whatever cards you need, e.g. more colored sources. Even though Copter is like equipment in that it requires another creature to do anything, it is totally unlike equipment in that it is a threat in itself. Suppose I have Copter and play Dark Confidant and crew Copter. If it was equipment and I equipped Confidant, they can kill in response and I spent mana for nothing. With Copter, I spend no mana and if they kill Bob they are still getting attacked. If they kill Copter I still have Bob. Honestly Copter is the best turn 2 play available to us and given that it can loot away extra copies of itself, I think it's crazy not to play 4.
I think going to 20 land is a bad idea, especially if you are going to play 4 Shambling Vent. One of the strengths of my version is that there are 8 manlands. I am not flooding much even with 23 land, less so with Bob and Copter to see extra cards. If you play with the hypergeometric calculator you will see that 23 land maximizes the chance to draw 3 or 4 by turn 3 on the play. I think it is imperative to hit our first 3 land drops so 23 is as low as I will go.
The Swords suck. They are clunky and vulnerable to lots of maindeck cards out of Death's Shadow. If you want a combo with Mirran Crusader, play Elspeth, Knight-Errant which is fantastic on its own.
Again I think the weak link in your deck is Gifted Aetherborn. I'm not sure what your meta looks like but it's a bad card unless the room is all Burn and Zoo, and even then I'd prefer Kitchen Finks. Aetherborn is not good against Death's Shadow and even if it was I wouldn't worry about that when you already have Lingering Souls, Mirran Crusader main, Gideon, and 15 removal spells counting Liliana and Collective Brutality. Your deck should be great against Shadow even if you replaced Aetherborn with Lone Missionary.
For one, I bet I take a lot less damage from my lands than you do.
My manabase differs by
-2 Windswept Heath
-2 Polluted Delta
-1 Watery Grave
-1 Vault of the Archangel
-1 Plains
+4 Mutavault
+2 Shambling Vent
+1 Godless Shrine
+1 Swamp
Gifted Aetherborn sucks. You will probably have to shock yourself to play it on turn 2. That is a complete disaster if it gets killed without gaining life, and even if it gains 2 you're back to where you started. I would rather have 4 Shambling Vent than any Aetherborn. You could even play Kitchen Finks instead. That's not to mention that Aetherborn is simply underpowered in general.
You should definitely try some number of Smuggler's Copter. Even without Mutavault and Tidehollow Sculler, 1-2 Smuggler's Copter is a fantastic addition to the deck.
My current configuration is definitely weak to Dredge but it's easy to beat if you want to. Same with Burn, but I don't think Burn is so bad you need Firewalker. If you draw Collective Brutality and Shambling Vent then you are in great shape. I would rather play something like Timely Reinforcements than Firewalker if you wanted an additional card. The only other graveyard deck I can think of is Storm and that matchup is already quite good for us.
I disagree about Elsepth vs Gideon. While it's true that you need a creature in play to use Angelic Blessing, the deck has 8 manlands, so you almost always have a creature. That and Elspeth makes her own creatures. Flying is also incredibly good. Often your Bobs or Scullers get outclassed on the battlefield and can't attack. Then Elspeth plays like Thundermaw Hellkite. She's also way better on defense since she accumulates loyalty while making tokens. The 1/1 vs 2/2 thing matters close to zero because creatures in Modern tend to be enormous or tiny.
Thanks! It was an awesome tournament even though I'm still not over my misplays in the top 8.
I definitely got lucky to dodge Tron and Burn. I might try to find a way to get a third Collective Brutality in the 75 for Burn and CoCo. Sculler was good. I think 2-3 is the place to be. It is truly great with Copter.
The Mirran Crusaders were fantastic though of course they are quite metagame dependant. At the very least they offer a quick kill with Elspeth.
I think the Abzan CoCo matchup is fine- I just screwed up big time in my match. I was super tired at that point. I don't think more sideboard cards are necessary. Mirran Crusader is awesome against them too.
Also, I have revised my opinion of the UW control match-up. If you have Pack Rats it's pretty bad. However if you have Copters it's medium and perhaps even good. I'm not totally sure yet but I beat Jeskai in the PPTQ and UW at Tuesday night modern today. Both matches were 2-0 and I was ahead the entire time in all the games.
One way to see why singleton sideboard isn't completely horrible: I am not relying on a specific card to win games. For instance, if I'm playing against a CoCo deck, I am not relying on Grafdigger's Cage to win the game. There are plenty of other good cards in my deck and sideboard, e.g. Linvala or Damnation, which are good against CoCo. I just want to board in 4+ cards that are good against CoCo. So I will board in Grafdigger's Cage, Linvala, Damnation, Collective Brutality, and Fatal Push, for example.
This strategy works for my BW deck because my matchups are all generally close to 50:50 and there are so many decks in Modern. If you have a bad matchup that is 70:30 in their favor, you can't improve it that much without dedicating a lot of sideboard space (most of the time). However if you spend a lot of sideboard space on one matchup, then you are giving up a lot against the rest of the field. By playing a singleton sideboard you position yourself to board in the most cards (on average) in any given matchup.
Like I said in a previous post, my sideboard singletons overlap in many functions and so give a ton of flexibility in sideboarding. I've had really good results with this type of sideboard, usually boarding more like 6+ cards in every matchup, so I haven't had an empirical motivation to change what I'm doing. All of this depends on the fact that many matchups are close and there are a ton of different matchups. If the metagame was only 5 decks I wouldn't do this. Similarly if I was playing a combo deck with polarized matchups I wouldn't do this. A midrange value deck cannot really be hated out except by big mana decks and those decks are incredibly hard to beat (with midrange) even if you dedicate a ton of sideboard space.
R1 - 5 Color Planeswalkers, win die roll, 2-1
G1 I had a sick draw of Inquisition into Sculler into Mirran Crusader into Elspeth. Unfortunately he was played Nissa, Voice of Zendikar on turn 3, Ral Zarek on turn 4 killing my Crusader, Sarkhan Unbroken on turn 5 , and then Stormbreath Dragon on turn 6. LOL. I was pretty surprised to lose that game. Games 2 and 3 I had good curves with Copter and was able to keep him from doing much.
R2 - Grixis Death's Shadow, win die roll, 2-0
G1 I had triple Lingering Souls. G2 I had Mirran Crusader. I'm pretty sure this deck just crushes Death's Shadow.
R3 - UWR Control, lose die roll, 2-0
G1 He had a ton of trouble dealing with Elspeth, which eventually sealed the deal. G2 he mulled to 5 and once again I had Elspeth. He even resolved Elspeth, Sun's Champion but Angelic Blessing took care of it and he died to manlands.
R4 - Grixis Death's Shadow, win die roll, 2-0
G1 I ground him out with Lingering Souls and Elspeth. My hand in G2 was insane with Elspeth, Mirran Crusader, Lingering Souls, Path, and Linvala. I boarded in Linvala because flying is good against them. He couldn't deal with Souls, Crusader, and Elspeth.
R5 - Living End, lose die roll, 2-0
G1 was pretty weird. His first Living End took out Copter, Sculler, and Bob but only got back a Fulminator and a Horror of Broken Lands. I was able to stabilize with Elspeth and the rest of the game was him trying to kill Elspeth. Eventually he died to Angelic Blessing. G2 He had a slower hand with only a single cycler and a bunch of removal. I beat him down with Copter and he had to Beast Within it, so I beat him down with the beast token and Mutavault. I had discard for all his cascade spells.
R6 ID
R7 ID
Quarterfinals - Abzan Coco, play due to seeding, 1-2
G1 he mulled 5 and I had Inquisition into Bob into Crusader into Elspeth and he died. G2 He had a good draw. I didn't draw any sideboard cards and he ended up with 2 Chord of Calling and took the game. G3 I totally messed up. He had Quillspike, Viscera Seer, and Kitchen Finks. I didn't understand what he could do with it and I made some huge mistakes. I tried to double block the Quillspike with Bob and Mutavault and got wrecked. Then I was a little stuck on mana the rest of the time because of losing the Mutavault. I died with a bunch of great cards in hand. I think I had the tools to win the game but I just messed up.
All in all the deck was great but I totally screwed up the quarters. Not sure if I could have won but I could have had a much better chance to win. The maindeck Mirran Crusaders were great in the metagame. There is another PPTQ next weekend so I'll be running it back. GGs
Thanks. My philosophy with the singleton sideboard is that it's pretty good against an unknown field. Many of the cards overlap in their usefulness, e.g. Surgical Extraction and Grafdigger's Cage, so you end up being able to board at least a few cards in every matchup.
Surgical Extraction is awesome against Dredge, Storm, and other non-graveyard combo decks like Scapshift and Ad Nauseam to a lesser degree. I think 2-3 is the limit for me but it's certainly a great card.
I like Ghost Quarter over Fulminator Mage, but I have given up on these cards in general. I feel like they are only really good against Normal Tron since Eldrazi Tron can function on 4 mana; also it can hit 4 mana with an Eldrazi Temple on turn 3 very easily. Means Fulminator is only slowing them down on the play. I think the only hope of beating Eldrazi Tron is to try and race them so I'd much rather spend 3 mana on something that beats down or kills their guys. Curving Copter into Fulminator is kinda sweet since it can crew + sacrifice though. I have to test that matchup more but I feel like we might be able to win with fliers + removal + way to deal with Chalice of the Void. So Copter + Anguished Unmaking seems like it could get there if anything can.
Solemnity is definitely interesting and does a lot of weird stuff. One thing to look out for against Eldrazi Tron is All is Dust so I'm a little scared of these types of cards against them.
I think Hexmage is just worse than Anguished Unmaking. It is cool that it can crew Copter before being sacrificed though, like Fulminator. The situations you mentioned unfortunately don't work. Chalice on 0 doesn't counter future Chalice on 1 because it has CMC 2 on the stack. The killing Karn before it's activated will never happen. The active player gets priority after a spell resolves on their turn so it would be a clear error to not activate Karn with Hexmage in play. No good player will ever do it. Killing Karn for 2 mana is good but I'd rather just play Pithing Needle.
Dark Depths is banned in Modern
Mirran Crusader definitely seems like a good sideboard card. You're right about the interaction with Elspeth - 10 in the air is no joke.
I actually have a Liliana the Last Hope in my sideboard. I listed a Collective Brutality instead by mistake. It is a great card.
Linvala has only been ok but I think it's worth it for the CoCo decks as well as Affinity. Sometimes a 3/4 flier is just great as well.
So - I have a PPTQ this weekend. I will probably run the last same list as tuesday with -1 Sin Collector +1 Tidehollow Sculler, assuming I can find one. I might also play -1 Collective Brutality +1 Anguished Unmaking and just hope to dodge Burn. I'm gonna mull it over next few days. Also might play a Mirran Crusader over the maindeck Blade Splicer. I know what a lot of the regular types play so if I see the Burn / CoCo people maybe I will play 2 Collective Brutality main
I agree about the Sin Collector. I only played it for lack of Scullers. I think Sculler is great because it's fine on turn 2 and on turn 3 as a follow-up to Copter. Sin Collector can do a crappy impression of that.
Chalice on 1 is definitely a disaster. Another reason why Eldrazi Tron is a truly horrible matchup. In game one you just have to hope to hit it with discard or that they don't have it. In game 2 my sideboard only has Engineered Explosives. I guess an Anguished Unmaking seems ok to board in against Eldrazi Tron to hit big guys and Chalice.
There are so many decks in Modern that it's tough to make an exhaustive list. Here's a try:
Grixis Death's Shadow - good
Affinity - good
CoCo decks - good
Storm - good
Jund / Abzan - good (even better with Pack Rat)
Ad Nauseam - medium / good
Burn - medium / good depending on # of Collective Brutality: 1 medium; 3 good.
Dredge - medium / medium bad
Valakut - medium / medium bad
UW Control - bad
Eldrazi Tron - bad
Normal Tron - bad
The maindeck is great against all the good matchups. You can do a lot with the sideboard to make Burn, Dredge, and Valakut good matchups, as well as normal Tron to a lesser degree. I don't think there is a good way to beat UW Control or Eldrazi Tron.
The Blade Splicer is also a big question mark. I played it because it's a good Copter follow-up but I don't have strong feelings about it.
I beat Slivers, GR Valakut, and Grixis Death's Shadow and then split the finals with Burn.
R1 - Slivers - lose die roll
g1 I had a ton of removal into Dark Confidant and Smuggler's Copter. Confidant + Copter lets you see a ton of cards! I killed all his stuff and eventually beat him down with Copter and Lingering Souls.
g2 I boarded in Damnation among other things. Once again I had a bunch of removal including Damnation and he never really got off the ground.
R2 - GR Valakut - win die roll
g1 I had Inquisition into Tidehollow Sculler into Sin Collector. That was plenty to slow him down. He was able to resolve a Primeval Titan but I could kill it with Liliana and attack for lethal.
g2 I had t2 Sculler into t3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar into t4 Smallpox, which I activated a Mutavault to sacrifice instead of my other creatures. It was an interesting game but once again he died to random beats before drawing anything good.
R3 - Grixis Death's Shadow - win die roll
g1 I got stuck on 2 lands but had a bunch of removal. I finally hit my third land drop to start casting Lingering Souls. Eventually I also played Elspeth and he died.
g2 I mulled to 5 and it was still close but he took the game.
g3 I had an opening hand with 3 Liliana of the Veil and was able to topdeck Elspeth for the win. All 3 games were quite long and fun to play.
R4 - Burn - ID
we just split. Burn is close to 50/50 anyway and mostly depends on if I draw Shambling Vent or Collective Brutality.
I kinda write the Slivers match off because it's not that popular a deck and the opponent wasn't playing very well. However the Valakut and Death's Shadow matches are against two of the best players at my shop. They regularly go to GPs and stuff so they are pretty good. I think Grixis Death's Shadow is a legitimately good matchup and could be even better if my sideboard wasn't so wonky. GR Valakut is definitely better with this version than the Rat version because of all the extra discard. I cut the Rats pretty much specifically because of decks like Grixis, Affinity, and Eldrazi Tron; so far so good.
No major conclusions yet but I think this version is quite good. I only played the Sin Collector and the maindeck Collective Brutality because I couldn't find third and fourth Scullers. Not sure yet if 3 or 4 Scullers is right but I want to at least try 4.
I just haven't played enough matches to know. I think the Copter build is much better than the Rat build for turns 2-4 but you do lose a bit on turns 5+. That's pretty much what I wanted. I think the deck already has a good enough late game with Lingering Souls, Copter, Elspeth, and manlands so it is better to try to have the best possible early turns.
I found that going t2 Rat, t3 Rat is just not happening in a field of Eldrazi Tron and Death's Shadow. Rat is too slow and expensive to compete with their huge creatures and cheap removal. I'd much rather go t2 Copter t3 Sculler against Storm as well.
When I had 4 Rat, I would usually play it at the first opportunity. There are definitely times when it was best to wait for 5 mana, but a lot of the time I'd end up playing it and then attack with Rat + Mutavault or make a Rat the next turn. Honestly the more I've played with it the more I've found that finding the 3 mana to make a Rat is hard, especially against Death's Shadow. You make a 2/2, they play a 4/5 and 9/9. It ain't great haha
1) I already wrote about this a lot; check out my past posts. tldr Angelic Blessing is a lot better than it looks, e.g. with Shambling Vent. I would play it without Mirran Crusader. If it wasn't for the prevalence of Death's Shadow I'd cut Mirran Crusader for some combination of Kitchen Finks and Tidehollow Sculler.
2) If I knew I was going to play against lots of Tron of any variety, I would probably rethink my deck choice. Ghost Quarter is a pretty good card against regular Tron; however I think it's bad against Eldrazi Tron. I used to play 24 land with 2 Ghost Quarter main so maybe I would go back to that.
Honestly though: Tron decks are going to be one of your worst matchups unless you go full Hatebears with 4 GQ, Leonin Arbiter, etc so I'm not sure there's a lot you can do without essentially switching decks. I wouldn't want to play this deck in a Tron-heavy meta. I actually wouldn't want to play in Tron-heavy meta at all, haha. I'm just hoping to dodge Eldrazi Tron in tournaments. I think regular Tron is real bad against Death's Shadow and generally worse than Eldrazi so it has been pushed out of the competitive meta.
I do sort of want a second Surgical but it might just be because I lost against Living End then beat Ad Nauseam and Amulet Titan with Surgical. Otherwise I never sided it in. Survivorship bias?
Against Burn I sideboarded:
-3 Thoughtseize
-4 Dark Confidant
+3 Collective Brutality
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Gideon of the Trials
+1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
+1 Celestial Purge
I didn't play against CoCo but my plan is:
-4 Inquisition of Kozilek
-4 Liliana of the Veil
-1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
+3 Collective Brutality
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence
+1 Fatal Push
+1 Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
+1 Shadow of Doubt
+1 Aven Mindcensor
I could even see also boarding in Pithing Needle or Surgical for Thoughtseize or Elspeth but I haven't tried it yet.
4x Mutavault
4x Shambling Vent
4x Concealed Courtyard
4x Marsh Flats
3x Godless Shrine
3x Swamp
1x Plains
Creature
4x Dark Confidant
2x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Mirran Crusader
3x Fatal Push
4x Path to Exile
Sorcery
3x Thoughtseize
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
1x Collective Brutality
Planeswalker
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4x Liliana of the Veil
Artifact
4x Smuggler's Copter
3x Collective Brutality
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Gideon of the Trials
1x Liliana, the Last Hope
1x Fatal Push
1x Shadow of Doubt
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
1x Celestial Purge
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Pithing Needle
1x Surgical Extraction
G1 I killed myself by playing a spell into Eidolon of the Great Revel at 2 life with lethal on the table. LOL. Time to tighten up. G2 and 3 I had Collective Brutality (thanks, sideboard!) and won easily.
R2 Living End 0-2
Both games I was a removal spell or two away from stabilizing but didn't get there. My sideboard has almost no relevant cards so it was rough.
R3 Grixis Death's Shadow 2-0
I wrecked this guy without drawing Mirran Crusader. Liliana, Lingering Souls, and Path were enough in both games.
R4 Mono Red Goblins 2-0
G1 he forgot about a Mutavault and made an attack that cost him his entire board. G2 I had removal into Kalitas into Elspeth for a casual 6/7 flying lifelink.
R5 Eldrazi Tron 2-0
This was the best match by far. G1 the board ended up as my Bob with me at 2 life and him at 2 life. I flipped a land and attacked for the win. G3 I was at 1 life against his Endbringer so I had to suicide a Shambling Vent into it. I also had double Lingering Souls and he died in the skies, without topdecking Reality Smasher or Walking Ballista. Earlier in the game I double blocked another Endbringer with Linvala and Mutavault and then cast Anguished Unmaking on his 5/5 Ballista before damage. Weeeeee
R6 ID
Quarters - Ad Nauseam 2-1
G1 he got me. G2 and G3 I was able to discard him into oblivion and surgical Ad Nauseam.
Semis - Affinity 2-1
G1 he had a great draw with double Plating, Etched Champion, and Ravager. G2 and 3 I just had a ton of removal and was able to keep him under control. Copter and Mutavault were MVPs in g2 to keep Etched Champion from being relevant.
Finals - Amulet Titan 2-0
We split the prizes but we played for fun. I absolutely destroyed him in both games. G1 he couldn't find a second green source for a while. When he finally did I had Path for his Primeval Titan and a lethal attack the following turn. G2 I had a bunch of discard and was able to Surgical his Titans.
The deck ran incredibly well. The 3 Collective Brutality in the board were stupidly good and I'm very happy with that change. Before the event I decided I really didn't want to lose to Burn or CoCo and I think 4 Brutality after board is the best way to accomplish that goal.
I think going to 20 land is a bad idea, especially if you are going to play 4 Shambling Vent. One of the strengths of my version is that there are 8 manlands. I am not flooding much even with 23 land, less so with Bob and Copter to see extra cards. If you play with the hypergeometric calculator you will see that 23 land maximizes the chance to draw 3 or 4 by turn 3 on the play. I think it is imperative to hit our first 3 land drops so 23 is as low as I will go.
The Swords suck. They are clunky and vulnerable to lots of maindeck cards out of Death's Shadow. If you want a combo with Mirran Crusader, play Elspeth, Knight-Errant which is fantastic on its own.
Again I think the weak link in your deck is Gifted Aetherborn. I'm not sure what your meta looks like but it's a bad card unless the room is all Burn and Zoo, and even then I'd prefer Kitchen Finks. Aetherborn is not good against Death's Shadow and even if it was I wouldn't worry about that when you already have Lingering Souls, Mirran Crusader main, Gideon, and 15 removal spells counting Liliana and Collective Brutality. Your deck should be great against Shadow even if you replaced Aetherborn with Lone Missionary.
My manabase differs by
-2 Windswept Heath
-2 Polluted Delta
-1 Watery Grave
-1 Vault of the Archangel
-1 Plains
+4 Mutavault
+2 Shambling Vent
+1 Godless Shrine
+1 Swamp
Gifted Aetherborn sucks. You will probably have to shock yourself to play it on turn 2. That is a complete disaster if it gets killed without gaining life, and even if it gains 2 you're back to where you started. I would rather have 4 Shambling Vent than any Aetherborn. You could even play Kitchen Finks instead. That's not to mention that Aetherborn is simply underpowered in general.
You should definitely try some number of Smuggler's Copter. Even without Mutavault and Tidehollow Sculler, 1-2 Smuggler's Copter is a fantastic addition to the deck.
From my latest list, I think I would try
-2 Mirran Crusader
+1 Collective Brutality
+1 Kitchen Finks
to have a better shot at beating Burn. I don't think you need the Crusaders to still wreck Death's Shadow.
My current configuration is definitely weak to Dredge but it's easy to beat if you want to. Same with Burn, but I don't think Burn is so bad you need Firewalker. If you draw Collective Brutality and Shambling Vent then you are in great shape. I would rather play something like Timely Reinforcements than Firewalker if you wanted an additional card. The only other graveyard deck I can think of is Storm and that matchup is already quite good for us.
I disagree about Elsepth vs Gideon. While it's true that you need a creature in play to use Angelic Blessing, the deck has 8 manlands, so you almost always have a creature. That and Elspeth makes her own creatures. Flying is also incredibly good. Often your Bobs or Scullers get outclassed on the battlefield and can't attack. Then Elspeth plays like Thundermaw Hellkite. She's also way better on defense since she accumulates loyalty while making tokens. The 1/1 vs 2/2 thing matters close to zero because creatures in Modern tend to be enormous or tiny.
I definitely got lucky to dodge Tron and Burn. I might try to find a way to get a third Collective Brutality in the 75 for Burn and CoCo. Sculler was good. I think 2-3 is the place to be. It is truly great with Copter.
The Mirran Crusaders were fantastic though of course they are quite metagame dependant. At the very least they offer a quick kill with Elspeth.
I think the Abzan CoCo matchup is fine- I just screwed up big time in my match. I was super tired at that point. I don't think more sideboard cards are necessary. Mirran Crusader is awesome against them too.
Also, I have revised my opinion of the UW control match-up. If you have Pack Rats it's pretty bad. However if you have Copters it's medium and perhaps even good. I'm not totally sure yet but I beat Jeskai in the PPTQ and UW at Tuesday night modern today. Both matches were 2-0 and I was ahead the entire time in all the games.
This strategy works for my BW deck because my matchups are all generally close to 50:50 and there are so many decks in Modern. If you have a bad matchup that is 70:30 in their favor, you can't improve it that much without dedicating a lot of sideboard space (most of the time). However if you spend a lot of sideboard space on one matchup, then you are giving up a lot against the rest of the field. By playing a singleton sideboard you position yourself to board in the most cards (on average) in any given matchup.
Like I said in a previous post, my sideboard singletons overlap in many functions and so give a ton of flexibility in sideboarding. I've had really good results with this type of sideboard, usually boarding more like 6+ cards in every matchup, so I haven't had an empirical motivation to change what I'm doing. All of this depends on the fact that many matchups are close and there are a ton of different matchups. If the metagame was only 5 decks I wouldn't do this. Similarly if I was playing a combo deck with polarized matchups I wouldn't do this. A midrange value deck cannot really be hated out except by big mana decks and those decks are incredibly hard to beat (with midrange) even if you dedicate a ton of sideboard space.
4x Mutavault
4x Shambling Vent
4x Concealed Courtyard
4x Marsh Flats
3x Godless Shrine
3x Swamp
1x Plains
Creature
4x Dark Confidant
2x Tidehollow Sculler
2x Mirran Crusader
3x Fatal Push
4x Path to Exile
Sorcery
3x Thoughtseize
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
1x Collective Brutality
Planeswalker
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4x Liliana of the Veil
Artifact
4x Smuggler's Copter
1x Anguished Unmaking
1x Collective Brutality
1x Damnation
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Gideon of the Trials
1x Fatal Push
1x Shadow of Doubt
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Celestial Purge
1x Pithing Needle
1x Gideon of the Trials
1x Smallpox
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdigger's Cage
G1 I had a sick draw of Inquisition into Sculler into Mirran Crusader into Elspeth. Unfortunately he was played Nissa, Voice of Zendikar on turn 3, Ral Zarek on turn 4 killing my Crusader, Sarkhan Unbroken on turn 5 , and then Stormbreath Dragon on turn 6. LOL. I was pretty surprised to lose that game. Games 2 and 3 I had good curves with Copter and was able to keep him from doing much.
R2 - Grixis Death's Shadow, win die roll, 2-0
G1 I had triple Lingering Souls. G2 I had Mirran Crusader. I'm pretty sure this deck just crushes Death's Shadow.
R3 - UWR Control, lose die roll, 2-0
G1 He had a ton of trouble dealing with Elspeth, which eventually sealed the deal. G2 he mulled to 5 and once again I had Elspeth. He even resolved Elspeth, Sun's Champion but Angelic Blessing took care of it and he died to manlands.
R4 - Grixis Death's Shadow, win die roll, 2-0
G1 I ground him out with Lingering Souls and Elspeth. My hand in G2 was insane with Elspeth, Mirran Crusader, Lingering Souls, Path, and Linvala. I boarded in Linvala because flying is good against them. He couldn't deal with Souls, Crusader, and Elspeth.
R5 - Living End, lose die roll, 2-0
G1 was pretty weird. His first Living End took out Copter, Sculler, and Bob but only got back a Fulminator and a Horror of Broken Lands. I was able to stabilize with Elspeth and the rest of the game was him trying to kill Elspeth. Eventually he died to Angelic Blessing. G2 He had a slower hand with only a single cycler and a bunch of removal. I beat him down with Copter and he had to Beast Within it, so I beat him down with the beast token and Mutavault. I had discard for all his cascade spells.
R6 ID
R7 ID
Quarterfinals - Abzan Coco, play due to seeding, 1-2
G1 he mulled 5 and I had Inquisition into Bob into Crusader into Elspeth and he died. G2 He had a good draw. I didn't draw any sideboard cards and he ended up with 2 Chord of Calling and took the game. G3 I totally messed up. He had Quillspike, Viscera Seer, and Kitchen Finks. I didn't understand what he could do with it and I made some huge mistakes. I tried to double block the Quillspike with Bob and Mutavault and got wrecked. Then I was a little stuck on mana the rest of the time because of losing the Mutavault. I died with a bunch of great cards in hand. I think I had the tools to win the game but I just messed up.
All in all the deck was great but I totally screwed up the quarters. Not sure if I could have won but I could have had a much better chance to win. The maindeck Mirran Crusaders were great in the metagame. There is another PPTQ next weekend so I'll be running it back. GGs
I will be back with PPTQ results on Sunday
I like Ghost Quarter over Fulminator Mage, but I have given up on these cards in general. I feel like they are only really good against Normal Tron since Eldrazi Tron can function on 4 mana; also it can hit 4 mana with an Eldrazi Temple on turn 3 very easily. Means Fulminator is only slowing them down on the play. I think the only hope of beating Eldrazi Tron is to try and race them so I'd much rather spend 3 mana on something that beats down or kills their guys. Curving Copter into Fulminator is kinda sweet since it can crew + sacrifice though. I have to test that matchup more but I feel like we might be able to win with fliers + removal + way to deal with Chalice of the Void. So Copter + Anguished Unmaking seems like it could get there if anything can.
Solemnity is definitely interesting and does a lot of weird stuff. One thing to look out for against Eldrazi Tron is All is Dust so I'm a little scared of these types of cards against them.
I think Hexmage is just worse than Anguished Unmaking. It is cool that it can crew Copter before being sacrificed though, like Fulminator. The situations you mentioned unfortunately don't work. Chalice on 0 doesn't counter future Chalice on 1 because it has CMC 2 on the stack. The killing Karn before it's activated will never happen. The active player gets priority after a spell resolves on their turn so it would be a clear error to not activate Karn with Hexmage in play. No good player will ever do it. Killing Karn for 2 mana is good but I'd rather just play Pithing Needle.
Dark Depths is banned in Modern
Mirran Crusader definitely seems like a good sideboard card. You're right about the interaction with Elspeth - 10 in the air is no joke.
I actually have a Liliana the Last Hope in my sideboard. I listed a Collective Brutality instead by mistake. It is a great card.
Linvala has only been ok but I think it's worth it for the CoCo decks as well as Affinity. Sometimes a 3/4 flier is just great as well.
So - I have a PPTQ this weekend. I will probably run the last same list as tuesday with -1 Sin Collector +1 Tidehollow Sculler, assuming I can find one. I might also play -1 Collective Brutality +1 Anguished Unmaking and just hope to dodge Burn. I'm gonna mull it over next few days. Also might play a Mirran Crusader over the maindeck Blade Splicer. I know what a lot of the regular types play so if I see the Burn / CoCo people maybe I will play 2 Collective Brutality main
Chalice on 1 is definitely a disaster. Another reason why Eldrazi Tron is a truly horrible matchup. In game one you just have to hope to hit it with discard or that they don't have it. In game 2 my sideboard only has Engineered Explosives. I guess an Anguished Unmaking seems ok to board in against Eldrazi Tron to hit big guys and Chalice.
There are so many decks in Modern that it's tough to make an exhaustive list. Here's a try:
Grixis Death's Shadow - good
Affinity - good
CoCo decks - good
Storm - good
Jund / Abzan - good (even better with Pack Rat)
Ad Nauseam - medium / good
Burn - medium / good depending on # of Collective Brutality: 1 medium; 3 good.
Dredge - medium / medium bad
Valakut - medium / medium bad
UW Control - bad
Eldrazi Tron - bad
Normal Tron - bad
The maindeck is great against all the good matchups. You can do a lot with the sideboard to make Burn, Dredge, and Valakut good matchups, as well as normal Tron to a lesser degree. I don't think there is a good way to beat UW Control or Eldrazi Tron.
The Blade Splicer is also a big question mark. I played it because it's a good Copter follow-up but I don't have strong feelings about it.
4x Mutavault
4x Shambling Vent
4x Concealed Courtyard
4x Marsh Flats
3x Godless Shrine
3x Swamp
1x Plains
Creature
1x Blade Splicer
4x Dark Confidant
2x Tidehollow Sculler
1x Sin Collector
3x Fatal Push
4x Path to Exile
Sorcery
3x Thoughtseize
4x Inquisition of Kozilek
4x Lingering Souls
1x Collective Brutality
Planeswalker
2x Elspeth, Knight-Errant
4x Liliana of the Veil
Artifact
4x Smuggler's Copter
1x Collective Brutality
1x Damnation
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
1x Gideon of the Trials
1x Fatal Push
1x Shadow of Doubt
1x Aven Mindcensor
1x Linvala, Keeper of Silence
1x Celestial Purge
1x Pithing Needle
1x Phyrexian Revoker
1x Smallpox
1x Surgical Extraction
1x Grafdigger's Cage
R1 - Slivers - lose die roll
g1 I had a ton of removal into Dark Confidant and Smuggler's Copter. Confidant + Copter lets you see a ton of cards! I killed all his stuff and eventually beat him down with Copter and Lingering Souls.
g2 I boarded in Damnation among other things. Once again I had a bunch of removal including Damnation and he never really got off the ground.
R2 - GR Valakut - win die roll
g1 I had Inquisition into Tidehollow Sculler into Sin Collector. That was plenty to slow him down. He was able to resolve a Primeval Titan but I could kill it with Liliana and attack for lethal.
g2 I had t2 Sculler into t3 Thalia, Heretic Cathar into t4 Smallpox, which I activated a Mutavault to sacrifice instead of my other creatures. It was an interesting game but once again he died to random beats before drawing anything good.
R3 - Grixis Death's Shadow - win die roll
g1 I got stuck on 2 lands but had a bunch of removal. I finally hit my third land drop to start casting Lingering Souls. Eventually I also played Elspeth and he died.
g2 I mulled to 5 and it was still close but he took the game.
g3 I had an opening hand with 3 Liliana of the Veil and was able to topdeck Elspeth for the win. All 3 games were quite long and fun to play.
R4 - Burn - ID
we just split. Burn is close to 50/50 anyway and mostly depends on if I draw Shambling Vent or Collective Brutality.
I kinda write the Slivers match off because it's not that popular a deck and the opponent wasn't playing very well. However the Valakut and Death's Shadow matches are against two of the best players at my shop. They regularly go to GPs and stuff so they are pretty good. I think Grixis Death's Shadow is a legitimately good matchup and could be even better if my sideboard wasn't so wonky. GR Valakut is definitely better with this version than the Rat version because of all the extra discard. I cut the Rats pretty much specifically because of decks like Grixis, Affinity, and Eldrazi Tron; so far so good.
No major conclusions yet but I think this version is quite good. I only played the Sin Collector and the maindeck Collective Brutality because I couldn't find third and fourth Scullers. Not sure yet if 3 or 4 Scullers is right but I want to at least try 4.
I just haven't played enough matches to know. I think the Copter build is much better than the Rat build for turns 2-4 but you do lose a bit on turns 5+. That's pretty much what I wanted. I think the deck already has a good enough late game with Lingering Souls, Copter, Elspeth, and manlands so it is better to try to have the best possible early turns.
I found that going t2 Rat, t3 Rat is just not happening in a field of Eldrazi Tron and Death's Shadow. Rat is too slow and expensive to compete with their huge creatures and cheap removal. I'd much rather go t2 Copter t3 Sculler against Storm as well.
When I had 4 Rat, I would usually play it at the first opportunity. There are definitely times when it was best to wait for 5 mana, but a lot of the time I'd end up playing it and then attack with Rat + Mutavault or make a Rat the next turn. Honestly the more I've played with it the more I've found that finding the 3 mana to make a Rat is hard, especially against Death's Shadow. You make a 2/2, they play a 4/5 and 9/9. It ain't great haha