I think it's too slow. If you're under pressure, you don't have time to durdle around like that and if you're not under pressure, I'd rather just clock my opponent with manlands. I still like the land as a way to bring back Goyfs and friends
Re: Jund btw. I haven't played the matchup but i see a lot of lists here running Bolt over Decay or Terminate. I tried out a couple of Bolts at one point but didn't like how they couldn't answer hard to deal with threats (we already have x/2s somewhat covered). With Looting, Insight, Vortex and Crime we already have a pretty low curve and plenty of T1 plays, I feel that with the limited room for removal we have that the spells should answer as much as possible. I get the feeling that ScOoze is a lot more problematic for lists that only have 3-4 ways to answer it after it grows to a 4/4+.
I don't know about Jund but I have been destroying Grixis so far. I already feel that I'm pre-boarded against them. Maybe it's just variance but the matchup have felt like a bye so far. Any deck running Islands except Storm (and probably also Scapeshift though I haven't met them yet) seems like favorable matchups. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
What do you guys think of running Smallpox in the sideboard by the way? It's a tech vs. Tron, Amulet Bloom and Bogles which are all difficult matchups in my experience. I haven't liked them in the main so far but miss them in those matchups.
Still pretty rough. Have only played it a couple of days. Verdant Catacombs and Raging Ravine are missing for budget reasons. The sideboard is quickly thrown together. The card I'm most unsure about is Surgical. I'm trying to live the dream where I GQ/Tec Edge a Tron land an Extract it (hasn't happened yet).
Actually Living End seems like a decent matchup. I just 2-0'ed against them. Looting and Loam filling the yard with critters is a nice insurance while you eat away their life total and I managed to keep up with them when it came to filling the GY. I'd imagine it's even better if you're running something similar to Yuuki's list with 12 beaters and 4 of them being ScOozes. I'm growing to like his approach. Still not liking the 8 enchantments though + Terminate and Decay is a good reason to splash black I reckon.
I've cut my Crimes for Countryside Crushers and I really like how it performs now. Before I ran 5 beaters which was at that threshold where I might not run beaters at all, since my opponent usually had removal for all of my threats. With 9 beaters I've reached that soft spot where he often lacks removal at a critical point.
The main issue with raven's crime now is how slow it works vs the delve decks. Fueling their delve creatures can put you behind and lead to you taking at least a hit or 2 while you set up a kill on it. That was my experience most recently.
Yeah that's been my experience as well. It also feels like the format is faster now. Back then there were some amount of durdly decks in Pod, 4c Gifts and Jeskai Control who couldn't beat the Crime/Loam/Tec Edge lock. Right now, people either gold fish before Crime hurts them too much or they get to establish a board presence. It actually makes sense that Yuuki cut black entirely, though it limits some sideboard options (mainly Thoughtseize/IoK). But then again I guess there isn't much that Thoughtseize/IoK do that GQ/Tech Edge doesn't do better when it comes to beating combo decks like Bloom Titan, Tron and Scapeshift. Storm and Eggs don't exist anymore so I guess all there's left is Ad Nauseam and Living End who are probably difficult to beat regardless.
It's crazy how much the meta has changed since I started playing Modern where I played Assault Loam in all kind of forms for a year or so.
Back then 3x Assault was the norm, now people play 4x Vortex and x Assault. I'm not sold on the 4x/4x Vortex/Assault split that Yuuki runs. But I haven't tested his build either. In my experience Vortex often sits there for several turns in a row without doing anything because you haven't found Loam yet and you want to use your lands for something else or you're up against a creature light deck where you'd rather dig to find a threat because Vortex/Assault is too slow. I guess it helps that he runs 4x Coursers and Crushers to filter through his deck.
Another thing I've found odd is that back then Raven's Crime and Smallpox were complete powerhouses and one of the main reasons to play the deck. Now I've found them rather mediocre and a card like Worm Harvest was complete garbage back then but I've had a lot of success with running a singleton.
I don't know how to process all of this, but there's definitely some major changes.
I just threw this together and so far I've been beating Elves, Merfolk, BW Tokens, Grixis Twin and Izzet Twin. I'm sure it folds to stuff like Tron, Amulet Bloom and Burn but there isn't alot of that online (except Burn maybe).
This is a 28 lands deck since I run 4x Looting/Insight/Vortex + 3x Crime. I started out with 4x Smallpox but they were awkward a lot of the time, especially with the 5 fatties. I might have to test Bolt and K. Command though and maybe Dismember since I don't wanna lose to some Pro-Red tech (Master of Waves for instance). I can't afford Lilly right now, else she would be an auto-include I think.
Some people have mixed opinions about Vortex. It has severally over performed for me and is really elegant compared to Assault. I played a lot of Assault Loam a couple of years ago and I always found Assault clunky and slow. Bad against T1: Delver/BoP/Signal Pest/Cursecatcher etc. I've found that once you start to activate Vortex several times in a row and the activation cost slows you down, you're winning anyway so it doesn't matter as much. It's the first 3-4 turns that are usually rough.
I'm gonna test the deck some more, but I really like it against the current online meta (lots of Tempo/Aggro/Midrange flying around)
Why did he opt for Grove of the Burnwillows? Can I replace with Stomping Ground? I only ask because it's like 13 tix each for that card on MODO and I'd rather not have to buy it if I don't have to. Do you guys think Stomping Ground will work just as well?
I don't like his mana base. Especially the Razorverge Thickets are out of place imo. We only have ½ card that is white, so having access to a Godless Shrine and a Temple Garden should be enough.
I think you're right. I haven't faced many goyfs yet but I have been on the receiving end of Ajani's Pridemage which is basically the same and I had 0 ways of dealing with it.
How has Mulch been working so far for you? I'm on the fence. It leads to some explosive T4 kills, but if the game goes on for a while I feel that the deck lacks ways to interact with the opponent.
Yeah manlands do a lot of work in this regard. Another option is to remove the Decays for Flame Jabs. I did that in my list and it gives you an alternative way to win as well (though terribly slow). I'm not a big fan of Assault in the list as we want to dredge 100% of the time, which means that Assault needs to be in our opening 7 to make any difference.
That's pretty sweet. Maybe I should give it another go.
One thing I learned though was that the Junk version performed a lot worse than the original version. It simply took too long to find all of the pieces. And then I tried a Gifts variant but realized that I'd rather just gift for Iona or Elesh Norn. There's a reason that Owen came to that exact deck list I have to admit. Don't fix what aint broken
It was a fun ride, but I guess it had to end at some point.
One thing though: I never left myself vulnerable to Path, I always made sure that I could kill the opponent in one blow once the fatty was reanimated or that the opponent had 0 cards in hand and had to top deck a Path. I also like the fact that you don't need to chose between dredging and drawing. Dredging is almost always correct as it leaves you one step closer to your win condition.
But yeah, sadly the deck is pretty inconsistent. So I guess I will be returning to regular Assault Loam *sigh*.
Hmm it's not looking so good for the home team. 0-2 and then I dropped (0-2 vs. the famous MattiasNL playing UWR Gifts and 1-2 vs. Soul Sisters). To my defense, I had terrible draws. Bad draws seem to happen a lot with this deck and losing Looting + Mulch doesn't help. On the other hand Darkblast turned out to be pretty sweet and I'm thinking on upping the count to 2 or even 3.
is it actually to reduce speculation or is it just to save space?
I think it is to reduce speculation. At one point the websites could break down the online meta flawless. MTGOAcademy and Starcity did that in a period of time and then wrote that they had stopped doing that because of WotC's new policy (which involved not revealing all of the data).
It was at the same time that WotC made the option of watching replays of your opponent during a tournament unavailable.
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What do you guys think of running Smallpox in the sideboard by the way? It's a tech vs. Tron, Amulet Bloom and Bogles which are all difficult matchups in my experience. I haven't liked them in the main so far but miss them in those matchups.
4 Countryside Crusher
3 Gurmag Angler
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
// OTHER SPELLS (23)
4 Faithless Looting
4 Magmatic Insight
4 Molten Vortex
4 Life from the Loam
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Terminate
// LANDS (28)
3 Blackcleave Cliffs
3 Copperline Gorge
3 Tectonic Edge
2 Ghost Quarter
2 Treetop Village
4 Bloodstained Mire
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Blood Crypt
2 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Swamp
3 Surgical Extraction
4 Thoughtseize
3 Pyroclasm
3 Feed the Clan
1 Spellskite.
1 Engineered Explosives
Still pretty rough. Have only played it a couple of days. Verdant Catacombs and Raging Ravine are missing for budget reasons. The sideboard is quickly thrown together. The card I'm most unsure about is Surgical. I'm trying to live the dream where I GQ/Tec Edge a Tron land an Extract it (hasn't happened yet).
I've cut my Crimes for Countryside Crushers and I really like how it performs now. Before I ran 5 beaters which was at that threshold where I might not run beaters at all, since my opponent usually had removal for all of my threats. With 9 beaters I've reached that soft spot where he often lacks removal at a critical point.
Yeah that's been my experience as well. It also feels like the format is faster now. Back then there were some amount of durdly decks in Pod, 4c Gifts and Jeskai Control who couldn't beat the Crime/Loam/Tec Edge lock. Right now, people either gold fish before Crime hurts them too much or they get to establish a board presence. It actually makes sense that Yuuki cut black entirely, though it limits some sideboard options (mainly Thoughtseize/IoK). But then again I guess there isn't much that Thoughtseize/IoK do that GQ/Tech Edge doesn't do better when it comes to beating combo decks like Bloom Titan, Tron and Scapeshift. Storm and Eggs don't exist anymore so I guess all there's left is Ad Nauseam and Living End who are probably difficult to beat regardless.
Back then 3x Assault was the norm, now people play 4x Vortex and x Assault. I'm not sold on the 4x/4x Vortex/Assault split that Yuuki runs. But I haven't tested his build either. In my experience Vortex often sits there for several turns in a row without doing anything because you haven't found Loam yet and you want to use your lands for something else or you're up against a creature light deck where you'd rather dig to find a threat because Vortex/Assault is too slow. I guess it helps that he runs 4x Coursers and Crushers to filter through his deck.
Another thing I've found odd is that back then Raven's Crime and Smallpox were complete powerhouses and one of the main reasons to play the deck. Now I've found them rather mediocre and a card like Worm Harvest was complete garbage back then but I've had a lot of success with running a singleton.
I don't know how to process all of this, but there's definitely some major changes.
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
3 Gurmag Angler
// OTHER SPELLS (27)
3 Raven's Crime
4 Faithless Looting
4 Magmatic Insight
4 Molten Vortex
4 Life from the Loam
4 Terminate
4 Abrupt Decay
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Copperline orge
2 Forest
3 Graven Cairns
2 Mountain
2 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
2 Swamp
4 Wooded Foothills
This is a 28 lands deck since I run 4x Looting/Insight/Vortex + 3x Crime. I started out with 4x Smallpox but they were awkward a lot of the time, especially with the 5 fatties. I might have to test Bolt and K. Command though and maybe Dismember since I don't wanna lose to some Pro-Red tech (Master of Waves for instance). I can't afford Lilly right now, else she would be an auto-include I think.
Some people have mixed opinions about Vortex. It has severally over performed for me and is really elegant compared to Assault. I played a lot of Assault Loam a couple of years ago and I always found Assault clunky and slow. Bad against T1: Delver/BoP/Signal Pest/Cursecatcher etc. I've found that once you start to activate Vortex several times in a row and the activation cost slows you down, you're winning anyway so it doesn't matter as much. It's the first 3-4 turns that are usually rough.
I'm gonna test the deck some more, but I really like it against the current online meta (lots of Tempo/Aggro/Midrange flying around)
I don't like his mana base. Especially the Razorverge Thickets are out of place imo. We only have ½ card that is white, so having access to a Godless Shrine and a Temple Garden should be enough.
This is what I've been running:
The Graven Cairns only make sense if you decide to put in a couple of Flame Jabs though.
How has Mulch been working so far for you? I'm on the fence. It leads to some explosive T4 kills, but if the game goes on for a while I feel that the deck lacks ways to interact with the opponent.
One thing I learned though was that the Junk version performed a lot worse than the original version. It simply took too long to find all of the pieces. And then I tried a Gifts variant but realized that I'd rather just gift for Iona or Elesh Norn. There's a reason that Owen came to that exact deck list I have to admit. Don't fix what aint broken
One thing though: I never left myself vulnerable to Path, I always made sure that I could kill the opponent in one blow once the fatty was reanimated or that the opponent had 0 cards in hand and had to top deck a Path. I also like the fact that you don't need to chose between dredging and drawing. Dredging is almost always correct as it leaves you one step closer to your win condition.
But yeah, sadly the deck is pretty inconsistent. So I guess I will be returning to regular Assault Loam *sigh*.
I think it is to reduce speculation. At one point the websites could break down the online meta flawless. MTGOAcademy and Starcity did that in a period of time and then wrote that they had stopped doing that because of WotC's new policy (which involved not revealing all of the data).
It was at the same time that WotC made the option of watching replays of your opponent during a tournament unavailable.