Here is my attempt at a list w/ EMN cards. I am currently considering dropping the two Mind Stones for +1 Matter Reshaper and +1 Wasteland Strangler. The idea behind this is it would decrease the consistency that TKS and Smasher are ramped out, but increase the overall consistency of having Eldrazi on the board earlier in the game. Another pro is adding more CMC 3 creatures benefits the Matter Reshaper(s) in the deck, but maybe I am overlooking the cantrip late game with Mind Stone. Alternatively, maybe the Mind Stones stay and I cut Go for the Throat for either a Reshaper or Strangler. Anyone have thoughts on either of those?
I am also going to be trying out the double Sorin because that +1 is just soooo good
I do love Sorin's +1 a lot, and maybe if I did add more CMC 3 creatures a second one would be decent. More CMC 3 cratures means more creatures on the board when you cast Sorin on T4. Imagine an opening with a ramped CMC 3 Eldrazi on T2, lingering souls on T3, and Sorin +1 on T4. That's pretty sick. However if I stay with Mind Stones and the plan to get TKS/Smasher out asap, I would not get a second Sorin because it would not have as many creatures out to make use of it and Sorin would compete with the big eldrazi for being played in T4.
I see some of your lists trimming down from 4 Path to Exile and/or Lingering Souls and I strongly recommend against that. These are two of the best cards white has in modern and pretty much the reason this deck runs white as one of its colors. I think 4-ofs of these cards are necessary for consistency, and it is better to trim them during sideboarding rather than trimming them from the main entirely.
It's not a huge force in the meta, but beware of decks running Ensnaring Bridge. (Lantern Control and 8 Rack for the most part)
If it resolves you pretty much have no way to win.
Be sure you try and run at least 1 maindeck answer, in my deck I run 2x Oblivion Ring with 2x Sea Gate Wreckage to try and draw into them.
Early testing today, but I drew 4 cards with Wreckage during the course of a long game. The card is really an all star.
Deaddrift had tried using Oblivion Ring rather than Anguished Unmaking because of AU's lifeloss, and after playtesting found that Oblivion Ring was answered too often and the loss from AU is worth the permanent exile. I totally agree with that conclusion and I think that even with your budget verison of the deck, AU's are less than $2 each and deserve a slot, probably two in the 75 as you often see.
Mind stone is in there to smooth out the colorless mana, provide a turn 2 play and mana ramp, draw a card in the late to mid game, and, most importantly, to protect against blood moon. Blood moon is one of the best cards against BWC decks, which is why we run marsh flats and mind stone. If they ever print some way to fetch fetchable colorless lands (excluding evolving wilds and the like) we could probably cut them.
I haven't thought about the manabase distrubtion for this deck, so I don't know how many utility lands we should run. But I am glad that sea gate wreckage is preforming well for you. I tried it awhile back and found that it was great turn 6 and beyond but didn't do anything for me before that. Plus it was just dead in some matchups (such as scapeshift), since I could not empty my hand before they killed me. Modern usually is a pretty fast format so I cut it. I think that mutavault would be better.
I really like sorin as a 1-of. It doesn't really do much when we are behind but he is great at resolving stalemates and saving our butts through life-link if we have a board presence. I feel that he pushes us over the edge in the match, but we need a board presence for him to do that.
I am LOVING Eternal Scourge so far. I run 3 right now. It's the perfect reoccurring threat that just won't go away, the only way to get rid of him that I can think of is through combat damage to send him into the graveyard which can be fixed with Relic or tucking him which isn't really used in Modern. He's quickly becoming my favorite 3 drop since he comes back if he dies unlike displacer, doesn't require a setup like strangler and doesn't whiff Matter Reshaper.
Some stupid and impracticable, but amusing tricks:
You can even path him yourself if you're mana screwed and bring him back.
Use Surgical Extraction on one in the graveyard to exile every copy you have then flash them all back.
I am also liking eternal scourge. I am even going to play additional relic effects (scrabbling claws) to make sure it is a recurrig threat or chumper
Distended Mindbender was ok. Never really drew him and when I did I sometimes didn't have a creature to sac or double black
Definitely better in heartless lves ion - not so much here
That is awesome that eternal scourge is testing well. I don't think that we should get too crazy and run more exile effects since it would dilute our threat density. My cards are still in the mail, so I haven't tested them out yet. That and the release for MTGO is next weekend...
Why does nobody run disenchant in their sideboard anymore? The card is amazing and better than anguished unmaking most of the time. Why not run both???
alright, after obtaining a bunch of needed stuff from a trade, I went ahead and revamped the deck. I am going for a more controlling route with the deck but I am always interested in feedback. I will also playtest it tomorrow night and will provide feedback from that too.
Interesting list. I would cut the two ratchet bombs for some Inquisition of Kozilek, I found that the sweet spot for BW decks is to run 6 discard spells. You will also want to change up your mana base a bit. You need at least 14 untapped B sources and 12 W sources to have a 90% chance to cast thoughtseize on turn 1 or lingering souls on turn 3. I would also cut the surgical extractions in favor of anguished unmaking. Anguished unmaking is great, it hits annoying things like ensnaring bridge and planeswalkers.
... Scourge could be good against Karn, and like Strangler or Reshaper he hits for 3 starting T3, which is good. He also survives Pyroclasm and Kozilek's return, which isn't terrible. But my 3 power creatures normally do not factor significantly in this matchup; the best line is usually hate, disruption, and a faster clock from TKS, Smasher, and even Blight Herder.
It sounds to me like it is great against tron. It provides a clock and survives their sweepers except for oblivion stone. Karn can only take care of one threat, and I am sure that your opponent will target something other than eternal scourge since thought-knot or reality smasher is a faster clock. To beat tron you need to apply pressure first, then tempo second. You need to make sure that you do not hinder your clock when you disrupt them. If you play a controlling game the first 3 turns while not applying any pressure, you will most likely loose. Their deck was built to dominate midrange decks from turn 4 on; therefore, you need to apply enough pressure in order to kill them by turn 4 or slow them down while applying pressure. Disrupting their manabase is very tricky and often a trap since ghost quarter slows you down by a turn while they can easily fetch a replacement land.
Thanks for the tournament reports deaddrift, I've only been able to play every other week or so recently so I am playing mtg vicariously through you (and some streamers).
I'm going to try 3 eldrazi mimic in the side once I have time to play again. They fit very well in the curve and, hopefully, you are playing a creature per round.
Turn 1/2 mimic
Turn 2/3 thought-knot or strangler attack for 3 or 4
Turn 3/4 thought-knot, smasher, or herder attack for 7 - 14
Turn 4 - They are dead.
Against tron I would side out the relics and some lingering souls and bring in:
anguished unmaking, 3x mimics, and pithing needle naming oblivion stone or karn
I do like duress though. I feel like there are better options than aven mindcensor.
Why do you run damnation and ratchet bomb in the side?
You can probably cut rest for the weary from your sideboard. The combination of wasteland strangler + thoughtknot really helps the burn matchup and gaining 8 life is not really needed when our creatures are just much larger than theirs.
I run a list very close to deaddrift's (no Cavern, no Mind Stone, and I run Displacer as a one-of along with 1 Reshaper) and my reasoning to keep Rest for the Weary as a two-of in the side is not really Burn (although it helps having more life gain) but Goblin decks that get really wide in the first turns and, at least for me, are quite difficult to race.
Numerous times I've been able to stabilize at 2-3 life (with them close to or at the starting life total) after playing one of them with Landfall active in the first turns, giving me enough time to find a sweeper and build a board presence to start the beating. One of the times I managed to survive a would-be lethal Goblin Grenade cracking a fetch to turn Landfall on and playing it in response, only to steal the victory in the following turns, so for me it's worth the spot in the side, but it could be meta dependent.
Fair points, I am fan of rest for the weary with the burn decks and probably against 8whack. I always feel that if I make it past turn 4, I will win the game. I would definitely try cutting it for blessed alliance once it comes out.
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Looking forward, I am strongly thinking Eternal Scourge is worth experimenting with. As someone else pointed out, Scourge could be pretty cool with Gemstone Caverns, too.
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The gemstone caverns and eternal scourge interaction is nice on paper but I feel that gemstone caverns will just be a plain wastes the majority of the time. I would rather have a ghost quarter or pretty much any other utility land instead of gemstone caverns. Our mana base is not too bad.
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Before I forget I want to mention that I've read a lot of talk about ditching Blight Herder for Eternal Scourge, while I think Scourge could deserve a spot in the list, I don't see running more than a 1-of, maybe two. There is a downside in that it can easily be removed by the opponent, and while lowering the curve would benefit the deck, Blight Herders are awesome and as long as I keep seeing as many as 2 people out of 8-10 running Ancestral Visions at my weekly tournaments I can't see myself removing them entirely. Trimming, sure, but they definitely belong in the deck. I'm also a much bigger fan of Westvale Abbey than most on the deck, which Herder Helps. 1 Eternal Scourge as a recurring presence on the board seems like it would be fine, but I think there's much more value to be had in Stranglers and Reshapers for that 3 drop spot. Speaking of Reshaper, I started playing with it a bit, trying a 3 Strangler/ 1 Reshaper split and now moving to an even 2/2 split, and that card has outperformed my expectations. Two games in a row the revealed card on Reshaper's death was a Strangler and I was able to process and kill a creature of the opponent's with its ETB trigger, talk about value. What I like about Strangler and Reshaper is in a bolt-heavy modern meta, these drops will get you value quickly, whereas Scourge would most likely come into play later (scourge T3, they kill before your T4, hopefully you've got TKS/Smasher/Herder in hand ready for T4).
I love Westvale Abbey in the deck. In my mana base I am either trading off a Shambling Vent or Ghost Quarter for Abbey and I think it's worth it in the relatively slow local meta I play in. This deck performs leaps better when you're getting TKS and Smasher out asap, so losing a tap-land and an self-destruct land for a late-game threat land is something I'm definitely alright with. Abbey's first ability is probably underrated, sure it's worse than Sea-Gate Wreckage if you're just looking at the first ability, but you can use Abbey when you have cards in your hand and that 1/1 can be a damn good chump blocker to buy turns while you topdeck as well. And getting to flip it is basically game-ending, and not necessarily in a win-more way. In a Jund matchup two weeks ago we each had 4-6 creatures on board and empty hands, he's got a 5+ something goyf and a beefed scooze to where I can't even swing with a Herder I've got out, I topdeck either another Herder or a Lingering Souls, flip Abbey, and they scoop when I do. I feel like I'm lucky in that usually we see 0-1 decks running some form of aggro, so I've got a few card decisions based on that. Other than the Abbey I've got a second Cavern of Souls (lots of blue players) and just this week I've decided to go from 3 to 2 Herders in favor of putting Batterskull back in. I ******* love Batterskull and I want it in the deck so much. It's an instant lifelink, 4/4 with vigilance creature at worst, it's an artifact that begs to be removed by your opponent that can also be saved by returning it to your hand, and moving it to a Smasher or Souls token is pretty OP. When I look at Herder and Batterskull as 5-drops, I would so much rather drop the Bskull much of the time, and while ramping a Herder is obviously good, getting the value of processing while ramping can be pretty tricky. I like Abbey and Batterskull both because of the ability to use mana late game on them if/when the draws aren't working in your favor.
Going back to the deck performing leaps better when ramping, I too am pretty sold on Mind Stone as a 2-of. Deaddrifts post just above mine discusses all the reasons to use it, getting a 1-2 turn ramp on Smasher being the strongest reason to play it. Often times I get to play a relic off the 1 mana on T2 when I Mind Stone, and that is a pretty decent set-up turn for this deck. Honestly I would love a second Sorin, but I don't see what else can be taken out for it other than Mind Stone and I don't think that's worth it. Increasing the consistency of ramping TKS and Smasher will get you wins, and the cantrip and colorless source seal the deal that this card deserves a spot.
This list seems very tight right now, and I really struggle with deciding how I can trim even 1 card to get something in for play-testing. It's great to see others having success with the deck locally, it is super fun to play and my favorite line to hear from an opponent is "I hate reality Smasher". I am baffled that there hasn't been any results posted by the deck at a large-scale tournament because I don't see where this deck is weak where other control decks aren't. Maybe it's because there's no pro level players grinding with the deck to perform better with it? Maybe no one's playing it online to have modern league representation?
Now that I've finally made an account, I'll try to make some posts on play reports and such. I think personally I could use lots of info on siding IN/OUT and strategies/game-plans against certain decks, and I'll contribute what I can. It would also be sweet if we could get some discussion on higher level plays that might not come up often, but are useful to know. An example would be "when facing U/B mill, always wait to use Relic's exile all ability and keep it untapped while your opponent has the open mana for Cryptic Incursion to crack it in response and stop their potentially huge lifegain". I mean relic alone has soooo many ways to get more value than just "exile card(s)" and as someone who's trying to play catch-up having recently jumped into modern I am looking for any and all ways to improve my piloting of the deck.
So we've got a modern no-ban tournament coming up in 2 weeks, having done it once before back in February. The first time I took my modern B/W Processors list and simply put in 2 Sensei's Divining Tops and managed to get 4th out of 25 or so. Would you think it would be better to stick with the current creature base for the one in two weeks, or should I bring in the Oblivion Sower and Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger package since I'll have Eye of Ugin available to me? I love Sower and was one of the last to take it out of my deck-list one Eye got banned, but the current creature build is much faster and I'm pretty content with Smashers being the main end-game threat. Right now my plan is to go with my current list, -2 Mind Stone/+2 Sensei's, and trimming two other cards for 2 Stoneforge Mystic to tutor and play Batterskull early. Any advice on a no-ban version of the deck would be appreciated.
Sorry for the wall of text, and thanks for all the discussion.
EDIT: I knew I forgot about something. I think Warping Wail deserves some testing in the sideboard and I've been playing with it for a couple weeks. The card is so versatile and that fits the deck pretty well, there are so many creatures in modern that can be exiled with it (and on turn two for 2 mana, 1 being colorless, it enables processors), and it seriously catches people off-guard when you are countering sorceries as a B/W deck. They will not play around Warping Wail and that is to our advantage.
Here is a list of resopnses to your points.
First of all, welcome back! I took a long hiatus from MTG too. I didn't play from 5th edition to Innistrad.
I agree on eternal scourge, it will probably be a 1 or a 2 of in the final iteration.
The deck hasn't put up any large tournament results since the deck is not too popular. For this deck to really break out, we just need one person at a major tourney to get lucky enough to have good matchups and place in the top 8. If this deck starts putting up a lot of 5-0 records on MTGO, it will also gain some popularity. Currently, when I play on MTGO I use the deck in my signature, but once the new set is released I am going to try out the processor deck I posted earlier in this forum.
I agree that some high level tips should be included for matchups. I think that they will be once some more tournament reports start coming in and more people can give some advice. deaddrift did a good job on the primer and I am sure that he will keep it updated and he is actively seeking input from us, which is really good.
I haven't had a chance to try out westvale abbey but it seems decent and I would stick with the blight herder plan to help generate tokens.
For your no ban list tourney, I don't think that the BW processor deck will be the strongest deck there but I would go back to the earlier pages of this thread and use one of those decks. Ramping into sower into ulamog is always a lot of fun. I would expect to play against a lot of blue cards.
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Even with 2x Ghost Quarter maindeck the Tron match is near unwinnable (1-2 today vs GR during lunch) because they have so many ways to tutor for missing tron parts and unlike Death and Taxes or Eldrazi and Taxes we have no way to reuse them nor any way to prevent them from getting a basic. I Quartered twice on his Tower in game 2, and he just tutored them right back up while my board remained underdeveloped due to not expanding on mana. Sea Gate just feels like it's so much better. I run out of cards into the late game pretty much every game unless I'm holding back a removal spell.
Thanks for the feedback and keep up the good work! I'm enjoying this deck quite a bit so far.
We both agree about the tron matchup and we play really similar decks. Tidehollow and displacer are really strong. Displacer can really take over the games sometimes and has helped my matchup against gavony township.
Maybe we should take some advice from the bant eldrazi deck and run some eldrazi mimic in the sideboard. It would allow us to apply a lot of pressure and would even help out against scapeshift (which is gaining in popularity) and other non-interactive decks.
@deaddrift - how did you beat ub mill? im having trouble with that matchup and i even play leyline of sanctity in the side (maybe ive just drawn poorly or select the wrong cards to discard from them)
I would like to hear the under and over performers during your night and what types of deck you played against. If everybody had a similar format it would be easy to compile a list to determine the best 60 cards for the deck and how to fine tune the deck for specific metas. Something of the form:
Deck name (type of deck: aggro, midrange, brew, etc.)
Record
Over performers (OP) :: Thought-knot
Under performers (UP) ::
Notes :: A one or two sentence summary explaining the matchup. Something along the lines of if anybody had any bad draws, somebody mulled down to 3, I couldn't find the right removal or sideboard cards, etc.
Then have the deck list within spoiler tags.
Well alrighty then! From Friday:
Affinity (creature-aggro)
2-1 [1-0]
SIDE IN: Stony Silence x2, Ratchet Bomb x2, Pithing Needle x2, Anguished Unmaking x1 / SIDE OUT: Go for the Throat x1, Relic x4, Thoughtseize x2
OP: Lingering Souls, Blight Herder, Ratchet Bomb
UP: Go for the Throat, Strangler Notes: I was on the draw G1. Ratchet Bomb is a good sweeper but nonbos with Stony Silence; since I drew Bomb but not Stony it worked out OK. Lingering Souls is always good against Affinity but Herder saved the day after an unexpected Blood Moon; it processed two Pathed creatures and gave C for my Seers and Smasher in game three.
UB Mill (spell-aggro/brew)
2-0 [2-0]
SIDE IN: Surgical Extraction x3, Stony Silence x2, Ratchet Bomb x2, Pithing Needle x2, Anguished Unmaking x1 / SIDE OUT: n/a
OP: Lingering Souls, Sorin
UP: Path, Strangler Notes: I was on the draw G1. When I side against Mill I don't remove cards, I simply add the ones that might be useful. This guy was running a sub-optimized budget brew with no Ensnaring Bridge, and he was an easy beat. In general the match is a race where we want the fastest possible damage output. A tuned Mill deck needs one or both of two specific cards to beat us: Crypt Incursion and Ensnaring Bridge. Both should be top targets for Thoughtseize/IoK/TKS. Ratchet Bomb and Unmaking can hit Bridge, and leaving Relic plus one mana active is mandatory to protect against Incursion.
Jeskai Control (control)
2-0 [3-0]
SIDE IN: Unmaking x1, Pithing Needle x2, Ratchet Bomb x2 / SIDE OUT: Go for the Throat x1, Sorin x1, Strangler x2
OP: Relic of Progenitus, Blight Herder, Lingering Souls, Reality Smasher, Thoughtseize, Ghost Quarter
UP: Go for the Throat, Surgical Extraction Notes: I was on the draw G1. The above is an example of a post-SB 61 from me, which I do pretty regularly. I was siding for Nahiri but it turns out he didn't use her. Relic on my T1 both games was brutal for him. Strangler hit an Ancestral Vision, killing itself, in G1; and Herder hit two Ancestral Visions in game 2. Resolved Smashers were able to swing through to close both games. Thoughtseize on his Elspeth, Sun's Champion was huge--that card is a huge beating once it lands. I was also able to see and then play around his in-hand Izzet Staticaster when I took his Elspeth, which was also crucial. Staticaster is very, very bad for decks that play as many tokens as we do. Watch out for one (rarely two) from the side in every G2/3 against any URx build.
Blue Moon (control)
1-1-1 [3-0-1]
SIDE IN: Extraction x3, Unmaking x1, Pithing Needle x2 / SIDE OUT: Sorin, Go for the Throat, Strangler x2, Smasher x1
OP: Mind Stone, Blight Herder, his Jace, Architect of Thought
UP: Lingering Souls (see notes), Surgical Extraction Notes: I was on the draw G1. I easily won G1 with Herder plus tokens; despite being locked to three lands until T8, my Mind Stone allowed me mana to cast my fatties. I am a huge believer in Mind Stone by now. In G2--which I lost after Thoughtseizing him on T1, taking one of his 3 in-hand Remands and then Extracting the other two--I had seven lands on board but no source for C. Frustrating. In both G2 and G3, his one-of Jace was able to +1 every turn and shut down my otherwise-awesome-in-this-kind-of-match Lingering Souls. That one planeswalker was able to win him the one game, and then draw the match for him. If I play this guy again I will bring in Ratchet Bomb for his planeswalkers for sure. I could have sided and played better in this match.
Grixis Delver (creature-aggro/control)
2-1 [4-0-1]
SIDE IN: Extraction x3, Unmaking x1 / SIDE OUT: Sorin x1, Smasher x2
OP: Relic, Thoughtseize
UP: his Snapcaster Notes: I was on the play G1 for once! T1 Relic in all three games was really bad for him. I don't have much in the way of notes for this match.
Thoughts: I recently decided to go back to Anguished Unmaking over Oblivion Ring because instant speed is so good and O-Ring is vulnerable to removal. I also took out my experimental Zealous Persecution from the side, replacing it with a second Pithing Needle for Tron, Affinity, and manlands/planeswalkers in general. Sometimes if you're lucky against a newer player you can name a fetch land with it, which is always good fun. The sideboard of my deck is always in a state of mild flux as I swap one or two cards around for something else to try each week or so.
I over-sided in Extraction vs. the blue Snapcaster decks tonight. It is pretty good in these matches but was dead a couple times for me tonight. I was frustrated in the Blue Moon match because it was eminently winnable but I didn't side correctly or play as well as I could have.
This is so beautiful! I like to read game reports but it is so nice to have a decent format where people can extract the information they want from each game without having to read through a whole paragraph. I think if everybody in this thread follows the same format, it will really help tune the deck. I am excited to read many, many reports to see how our deck actually preforms against other decks baised on many matchups of every skill level. I feel that the reports currently reported here are by people who are very experienced with the BW color combination in modern and that their sideboard information or by game matchups will make a better primer and encourage more people to play BW in modern.
Questions:
vs. affinity :: Why didn't you bring in damnation? Sorin is slow and can be sideboarded.
I agree, blood moon is unexpected. But usually against any deck that runs red I try to play around it as much as possible game 2. Plays such as cracking marsh flats for a basic and so on. I do this since blood moon absolutely wrecks this deck right now.
You can probably cut rest for the weary from your sideboard. The combination of wasteland strangler + thoughtknot really helps the burn matchup and gaining 8 life is not really needed when our creatures are just much larger than theirs.
Yeah, I like matter reshaper a lot but I feel that eternal scourge fills the role of a re-occuring threat that will help out the longer matches. The ability to play eternal scourge and draw a random card when we are top-decking is pretty powerfull. This all could change once I get my hands on it though, I have been wrong many times before.
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I am happy to write reports if some readers like them enough to let me know. Would side in/out notes be useful? More detail about key cards? But maybe just coming by every few days to report more reliable success with the build--which is what I continue to find at my LGS--isn't really the most productive way to use our time and bandwidth.
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I would like to hear the under and over performers during your night and what types of deck you played against. If everybody had a similar format it would be easy to compile a list to determine the best 60 cards for the deck and how to fine tune the deck for specific metas. Something of the form:
Deck name (type of deck: aggro, midrange, brew, etc.)
Record
Over performers (OP) :: Thought-knot
Under performers (UP) ::
Notes :: A one or two sentence summary explaining the matchup. Something along the lines of if anybody had any bad draws, somebody mulled down to 3, I couldn't find the right removal or sideboard cards, etc.
Anyone go with an Esper Version? It seems on paper to be pretty strong with access to Drowner of Hope and Delay
It would be pretty difficult since an esper version is basically a 4 color deck. Having negate or stubborn denial against tron and serum visions for some added consistency would be nice though. I would start by replacing mind stone with a few talisman of dominance.
I am starting to feel that a deck which includes eternal scourge, relic, and lingering souls should seriously consider running collective brutality in the main 60.
Collective brutality it would help out against: burn, merfolk, zoo, collective company decks, elves, scapeshift, and 8-whack. It has a relevant mode against most decks in modern and we could discard lingering souls or eternal scourge for value. The ability for the card to either be a kill spell, discard spell, and/or a life gain spell is pretty amazing. Especially since we take so much damage with our mana base.
I feel like eternal scourge fits the role as a manland for the BW processor deck and is a much need low cmc drop that avoids blood moon shenanigans. I would cut blight herder for the eldrazi horror and try out the deck that I said earlier.
Other than eternal scourge, I feel like there are two new cards that are pretty good sideboard options for us:
I feel like there are valid arguments for both of those cards in our sideboard instead of rest for the weary or other cards that help out with the burn/zoo matchup. What are everybody else's thoughts?
Because the CMC of the deck is too high. The general list has an average CMC around 2.8 and about 9 cards with CMC 4 or 5 while decks that run bob have a average CMC around 2 and only run one or two 4-drops.
The current iteration of this deck would take a lot of damage with bob. If you want to draw cards you can try phyrexian arena or night's whisper.
I think that eternal scourge is a great fit for this deck. It is pretty much an unkillable re-occurring threat that we can bring back if we have nothing better to do.
They path it, we can still cast it.
It dies some other way, we use relic to exile it, then cast it.
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A single Ghost Quarter is unlikely to be enough all by itself, agreed. However, GQ + Extraction is unbelievably good. When I get this I win the game. Ask Tron players about how it feels for one of their Tron lands to get Extracted, if you doubt my perspective. Attacking the mana is the format standard, tried-and-true method of disrupting Tron's game. (Thoughtseize + Extraction on Wurmcoil or especially Karn can also be good.) I find it hard to imagine many situations where GQing Sanctum would be a better play than hitting a Tron land; if they can't cast a 7+ CMC colorless spell, then Sanctum is just a Wastes for them. And if I can keep them off Tron, they're not likely to be able to cast such a spell before they are dead (assuming I can prevent O-Stone from cracking). They don't have a ton of threats, true, but they can find their threats pretty easily even without Sanctum, and their threats are better than ours, so one is often all they need.
Tron beats midrange decks. That's what it does. All decks have a rock to their scissors and this is one of ours.
We approach the tron matchup differently. I assume that they are going to hit tron and deal with their threats. I do this since the majority of their cards are there to try and assemble the combo. If I spend turns just trying to stop them and not applying pressure by sacraficing my lands and playing stony silence, I loose. Tron folds when you apply pressure quickly. Once they get the combo they usually only have one or two threats to deal with. I am attacking where I believe there deck is weak, the threat density. I take out my slow cards and put in cards that deal with their threats in the most efficient manner.
Yes, I think that ghost quarter + extraction is good. The problem is that you need both of them in your hand. Surgical extraction is a dead card in our hand unless we have ghost quarter since the majority of our removal exiles their threats. By running surgical extraction you are taking up sideboard slots that can be used for cards like fulminator mage which has the versatility to kill lands and apply pressure.
Thoughtseize + surgical on karn is good since the majority of RG tron lists run 4 karns, but extracting anything else is not as great.
Yes, pithing needle naming karn or o-stone is really good. I really like pithing needle in the sideboard, it is a very useful card.
I just think that this deck has a very bad tron matchup since the CMC of the creatures is so high. Both decks are playing good threats by turn 4, but a karn beats thought-knot, blight hearder, or reality smasher all day long. We need to essentialy need to apply more pressure sooner, which is why matter reshaper is good in this matchup.
If you want to beat Tron, you need speed. Cards i hate to see when i'm playing is P.Needle,G.Quarter and Path. Stony Silence is only good turn 2 o 3. Mindcensor might be good too.
But dont try to beat Tron at all cost sacrificing you SB, sometimes you just need to accept the bad MU. It's hard for any midrange deck to beat Tron.
This is true. The problem with ghost quarter and the bw processor decks is that the creatures cost a significant amount of mana to cast and by using ghost quarter we are slowing ourseleves down and providing them with a mountain or forest. If we ghost quarter a land they have multiple copies of by holding on to it in their hand, it is a such a huge tempo loss for us that we can not recover.
Long Road Home looks like it might have some functionality in this build to eliminate one of their guys or to protect one of our own. Cost is reasonable. Thoughts?
I think that it is not a good fit for this deck. It is a reactionary card and it would just be better to have more threats. It could be useful against sweepers, but you are just better off running another thoughtseize.
I also play Martyr proc and a ton of people switched to b/w version when Anguished Unmaking became availible. I still have flashes of them abrupt decayinging my ring or bouncing it with crytping. There is no way i'll ever play obliviong rings, it's just so fragile and unreliable. God forbid someone maelstrom pulses 2.
Yeah. Anguished unmaking is so good I always main deck 2.
... Thoughts: Yep, still 100% sold on Processors. I am not willing to give up on the Tron and RG Valakut matchups but they are super tough. Not sure I have a lot of room for improvement against them unless I weaken some other lines, though. Anyone feel like they have the answer for these decks? I am almost ready to throw down the funds for a Crucible of Worlds I think, which could make Ghost Quarter incredible in these matches.
I think that you are going about the RG tron matchup the wrong way. Most of the time it is not very efficient to attack their mana base. They have 20-ish cantrips or tutors to look for the land they need. To beat tron you need to play threat after threat so they cannot keep up with you. Cracking ghost quarter on a tron land is a bad idea since it just slows you down when you can play reality smasher, thought-knot, etc. I feel that bringing in surgical extractions to try and exile one of their lands after using a ghost quarter is such a huge tempo loss on your part. Looking at your deck, these are the cards that I would try and sideboard out: Relic of Progenitus Lingering Souls Oblivion ring :: This card is not great against tron. They have many ways to get rid of it and then you are stuck playing against two threats. It is better to run anguished unmaking to permanently exile their threats.
Your gameplan should be to play threats to put them on a clock and have the relevant removal that when they play a threat you just deal with it while preserving your threats. Here is what I would side in: Anguished unmaking :: This is primarily for karn Path to exile :: This is for world breaker, wurmcoil, ulamog, etc. Disenchant :: This is for turn 1 expedition maps and obilivion stones.
More threats! Matter reshaper is pretty decent against tron.
When I play against tron, I usually play a couple of 3/x creatures or a 3/2 and a thought-knot to put them on a two turn clock. Don't over extend yourself either. Lay out a decent clock then hold back to deal with their threats. The game feels like a boxing match, you come out strong, they recover, then you deal with their threat and play more threats to win the game.
If I were to ghost quarter a land, I would ghost quarter Sanctum of Ugin 100% of the time. Their deck has fewer threats than yours and after they assemble tron they have a lot of dead draws. You need to take advantage of that.
Blessed Alliance looks like a solid sideboard choice instead of rest for the weary. Yes you gain less life, but blessed alliance can also make them sac a creature and helps with the bogles matchup.
Mind stone is in there to smooth out the colorless mana, provide a turn 2 play and mana ramp, draw a card in the late to mid game, and, most importantly, to protect against blood moon. Blood moon is one of the best cards against BWC decks, which is why we run marsh flats and mind stone. If they ever print some way to fetch fetchable colorless lands (excluding evolving wilds and the like) we could probably cut them.
I haven't thought about the manabase distrubtion for this deck, so I don't know how many utility lands we should run. But I am glad that sea gate wreckage is preforming well for you. I tried it awhile back and found that it was great turn 6 and beyond but didn't do anything for me before that. Plus it was just dead in some matchups (such as scapeshift), since I could not empty my hand before they killed me. Modern usually is a pretty fast format so I cut it. I think that mutavault would be better.
I really like sorin as a 1-of. It doesn't really do much when we are behind but he is great at resolving stalemates and saving our butts through life-link if we have a board presence. I feel that he pushes us over the edge in the match, but we need a board presence for him to do that.
That is awesome that eternal scourge is testing well. I don't think that we should get too crazy and run more exile effects since it would dilute our threat density. My cards are still in the mail, so I haven't tested them out yet. That and the release for MTGO is next weekend...
Why does nobody run disenchant in their sideboard anymore? The card is amazing and better than anguished unmaking most of the time. Why not run both???
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Interesting list. I would cut the two ratchet bombs for some Inquisition of Kozilek, I found that the sweet spot for BW decks is to run 6 discard spells. You will also want to change up your mana base a bit. You need at least 14 untapped B sources and 12 W sources to have a 90% chance to cast thoughtseize on turn 1 or lingering souls on turn 3. I would also cut the surgical extractions in favor of anguished unmaking. Anguished unmaking is great, it hits annoying things like ensnaring bridge and planeswalkers.
It sounds to me like it is great against tron. It provides a clock and survives their sweepers except for oblivion stone. Karn can only take care of one threat, and I am sure that your opponent will target something other than eternal scourge since thought-knot or reality smasher is a faster clock. To beat tron you need to apply pressure first, then tempo second. You need to make sure that you do not hinder your clock when you disrupt them. If you play a controlling game the first 3 turns while not applying any pressure, you will most likely loose. Their deck was built to dominate midrange decks from turn 4 on; therefore, you need to apply enough pressure in order to kill them by turn 4 or slow them down while applying pressure. Disrupting their manabase is very tricky and often a trap since ghost quarter slows you down by a turn while they can easily fetch a replacement land.
Our best cards in the matchup are:
I feel that eternal scourge, if it is mainboard worthy, will pull some weight against tron and that eldrazi mimic is one of our best sideboard cards.
I did some searching on the interwebs and I found an article that explains how to beat tron ( http://manadeprived.com/beating-rg-tron/ ) better than my previous comments here and here.
Thanks for the tournament reports deaddrift, I've only been able to play every other week or so recently so I am playing mtg vicariously through you (and some streamers).
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Turn 1/2 mimic
Turn 2/3 thought-knot or strangler attack for 3 or 4
Turn 3/4 thought-knot, smasher, or herder attack for 7 - 14
Turn 4 - They are dead.
Against tron I would side out the relics and some lingering souls and bring in:
anguished unmaking, 3x mimics, and pithing needle naming oblivion stone or karn
I do like duress though. I feel like there are better options than aven mindcensor.
Why do you run damnation and ratchet bomb in the side?
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Fair points, I am fan of rest for the weary with the burn decks and probably against 8whack. I always feel that if I make it past turn 4, I will win the game. I would definitely try cutting it for blessed alliance once it comes out.
The gemstone caverns and eternal scourge interaction is nice on paper but I feel that gemstone caverns will just be a plain wastes the majority of the time. I would rather have a ghost quarter or pretty much any other utility land instead of gemstone caverns. Our mana base is not too bad.
Here is a list of resopnses to your points.
We both agree about the tron matchup and we play really similar decks. Tidehollow and displacer are really strong. Displacer can really take over the games sometimes and has helped my matchup against gavony township.
Maybe we should take some advice from the bant eldrazi deck and run some eldrazi mimic in the sideboard. It would allow us to apply a lot of pressure and would even help out against scapeshift (which is gaining in popularity) and other non-interactive decks.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
This is so beautiful! I like to read game reports but it is so nice to have a decent format where people can extract the information they want from each game without having to read through a whole paragraph. I think if everybody in this thread follows the same format, it will really help tune the deck. I am excited to read many, many reports to see how our deck actually preforms against other decks baised on many matchups of every skill level. I feel that the reports currently reported here are by people who are very experienced with the BW color combination in modern and that their sideboard information or by game matchups will make a better primer and encourage more people to play BW in modern.
Questions:
vs. affinity :: Why didn't you bring in damnation? Sorin is slow and can be sideboarded.
I agree, blood moon is unexpected. But usually against any deck that runs red I try to play around it as much as possible game 2. Plays such as cracking marsh flats for a basic and so on. I do this since blood moon absolutely wrecks this deck right now.
Why don't you run any inquisition of kozilek?
You can probably cut rest for the weary from your sideboard. The combination of wasteland strangler + thoughtknot really helps the burn matchup and gaining 8 life is not really needed when our creatures are just much larger than theirs.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Yeah, I like matter reshaper a lot but I feel that eternal scourge fills the role of a re-occuring threat that will help out the longer matches. The ability to play eternal scourge and draw a random card when we are top-decking is pretty powerfull. This all could change once I get my hands on it though, I have been wrong many times before.
I would like to hear the under and over performers during your night and what types of deck you played against. If everybody had a similar format it would be easy to compile a list to determine the best 60 cards for the deck and how to fine tune the deck for specific metas. Something of the form:
Deck name (type of deck: aggro, midrange, brew, etc.)
Record
Over performers (OP) :: Thought-knot
Under performers (UP) ::
Notes :: A one or two sentence summary explaining the matchup. Something along the lines of if anybody had any bad draws, somebody mulled down to 3, I couldn't find the right removal or sideboard cards, etc.
Then have the deck list within spoiler tags.
Example:
Affinity (aggro)
2-0
OP :: Lingering souls, stony silence
UP :: Matter reshaper
Notes :: My opponent had a slow start game 1 and I found my silver bullet game 2.
RG Tron (it's tron, ugh...)
0-2
OP :: -
UP ::
Notes :: Natural tron turn 3 both games.
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
4 Lingering Souls
2 Mind Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
Lands (24):
24x Lands
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
It would be pretty difficult since an esper version is basically a 4 color deck. Having negate or stubborn denial against tron and serum visions for some added consistency would be nice though. I would start by replacing mind stone with a few talisman of dominance.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Collective brutality it would help out against: burn, merfolk, zoo, collective company decks, elves, scapeshift, and 8-whack. It has a relevant mode against most decks in modern and we could discard lingering souls or eternal scourge for value. The ability for the card to either be a kill spell, discard spell, and/or a life gain spell is pretty amazing. Especially since we take so much damage with our mana base.
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
2 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
2 Collective Brutality
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
4 Lingering Souls
2 Mind Stone
4 Relic of Progenitus
Lands (24):
24x Lands
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Other than eternal scourge, I feel like there are two new cards that are pretty good sideboard options for us:
collective brutality
blessed alliance
I feel like there are valid arguments for both of those cards in our sideboard instead of rest for the weary or other cards that help out with the burn/zoo matchup. What are everybody else's thoughts?
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
Because the CMC of the deck is too high. The general list has an average CMC around 2.8 and about 9 cards with CMC 4 or 5 while decks that run bob have a average CMC around 2 and only run one or two 4-drops.
The current iteration of this deck would take a lot of damage with bob. If you want to draw cards you can try phyrexian arena or night's whisper.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
They path it, we can still cast it.
It dies some other way, we use relic to exile it, then cast it.
Edit:
I would try something like this:
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Wasteland Strangler
2 Matter Reshaper
4 Thought-Knot Seer
4 Reality Smasher
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
Spells (14):
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Lingering Souls
1 Dismember
3 Path to Exile
1 Anguished Unmaking
2 Mind Stone
3 Relic of Progenitus
Lands (24):
24x Lands
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
We approach the tron matchup differently. I assume that they are going to hit tron and deal with their threats. I do this since the majority of their cards are there to try and assemble the combo. If I spend turns just trying to stop them and not applying pressure by sacraficing my lands and playing stony silence, I loose. Tron folds when you apply pressure quickly. Once they get the combo they usually only have one or two threats to deal with. I am attacking where I believe there deck is weak, the threat density. I take out my slow cards and put in cards that deal with their threats in the most efficient manner.
Yes, I think that ghost quarter + extraction is good. The problem is that you need both of them in your hand. Surgical extraction is a dead card in our hand unless we have ghost quarter since the majority of our removal exiles their threats. By running surgical extraction you are taking up sideboard slots that can be used for cards like fulminator mage which has the versatility to kill lands and apply pressure.
Thoughtseize + surgical on karn is good since the majority of RG tron lists run 4 karns, but extracting anything else is not as great.
Yes, pithing needle naming karn or o-stone is really good. I really like pithing needle in the sideboard, it is a very useful card.
I just think that this deck has a very bad tron matchup since the CMC of the creatures is so high. Both decks are playing good threats by turn 4, but a karn beats thought-knot, blight hearder, or reality smasher all day long. We need to essentialy need to apply more pressure sooner, which is why matter reshaper is good in this matchup.
This is true. The problem with ghost quarter and the bw processor decks is that the creatures cost a significant amount of mana to cast and by using ghost quarter we are slowing ourseleves down and providing them with a mountain or forest. If we ghost quarter a land they have multiple copies of by holding on to it in their hand, it is a such a huge tempo loss for us that we can not recover.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
I think that it is not a good fit for this deck. It is a reactionary card and it would just be better to have more threats. It could be useful against sweepers, but you are just better off running another thoughtseize.
Yeah. Anguished unmaking is so good I always main deck 2.
I think that you are going about the RG tron matchup the wrong way. Most of the time it is not very efficient to attack their mana base. They have 20-ish cantrips or tutors to look for the land they need. To beat tron you need to play threat after threat so they cannot keep up with you. Cracking ghost quarter on a tron land is a bad idea since it just slows you down when you can play reality smasher, thought-knot, etc. I feel that bringing in surgical extractions to try and exile one of their lands after using a ghost quarter is such a huge tempo loss on your part. Looking at your deck, these are the cards that I would try and sideboard out:
Relic of Progenitus
Lingering Souls
Oblivion ring :: This card is not great against tron. They have many ways to get rid of it and then you are stuck playing against two threats. It is better to run anguished unmaking to permanently exile their threats.
Your gameplan should be to play threats to put them on a clock and have the relevant removal that when they play a threat you just deal with it while preserving your threats. Here is what I would side in:
Anguished unmaking :: This is primarily for karn
Path to exile :: This is for world breaker, wurmcoil, ulamog, etc.
Disenchant :: This is for turn 1 expedition maps and obilivion stones.
More threats! Matter reshaper is pretty decent against tron.
When I play against tron, I usually play a couple of 3/x creatures or a 3/2 and a thought-knot to put them on a two turn clock. Don't over extend yourself either. Lay out a decent clock then hold back to deal with their threats. The game feels like a boxing match, you come out strong, they recover, then you deal with their threat and play more threats to win the game.
If I were to ghost quarter a land, I would ghost quarter Sanctum of Ugin 100% of the time. Their deck has fewer threats than yours and after they assemble tron they have a lot of dead draws. You need to take advantage of that.
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange
CBW midrange deck
CBW eldrazi processor deck
CBW bw eldrazi shadow midrange