The meta is the same, just less counterspells. I've tested it quite a bit. My list has been good to me. You need a good chunk of aoe removal for sure if you want to go with the LD plan.
The fact you blow up a land on t2 is not what makes that deck good. Regardless of *when* you blow up the land, they will eventually run out of land drops at a certain point. Lots of decks in modern play fetchlands. Opponent's can just play a fetch t1 and pass, you can't Boom that.
The RW deck is solid because Ghostly Prison naturally slows down many creature based deck regardless of you blowing up lands. Tabernacle also slows them down.
Bramblecrush is the best Creeping Mold. I've since taken out the Spoil in favor of 1 MD Crumble. You can run other things here, like Befoul even.
If you wanted another good one, Avalanche Riders is sweet. Ignore the fact it has echo and just assume it will die next turn. You cast, it can swing to planeswalkers if need, but it's a 2/2 body that blocks creature decks on your turn 3 a good chunk of the time.
One requires double black the other double red. They cannot be easily interchanged. The deck I designed focuses on Forests. Note how important Forests are for Utopia Sprawl. So we know we are already constrained to finding an untapped Forest on turn 1. Then notice we use Damnation, which is a much better sweeper than Anger of the Gods. Anger can't kill etched champion or goyf or tasigur or rhino or random other threats that pop up every now and then.
As a result, I designed the deck to favor a forest turn 1/2, and double-black by turn 3/4 when you need to sweep. If we throw in a double red card you throw everything off balance.
As a counterpoint, we are arguing that double red for the sake of 2 damage is "worth it." How often is that two damage going to be relevant? We aren't attacking them with creatures, so tacking on a little damage won't actually help use much. When we do attack it's going to be for lethal (Assassins) or for 10 (Grave Titan). The best the 2 damage can serve us is in the face of a Lily or other planeswalker that ticked down. These type of walkers are pretty rare actually in modern, and when they do pop up we have decay/vraska to deal with them.
There have been times where I've had 2 Vraska in hand and I don't mind it. You can always play them to blow up a permanent. GDD is a tad scary cause with our current design that only hits Stone Rain and Rain of Tears, doesn't work with Fulminator Mage or Wrecking Ball. The creature itself isn't a good replacement as a finisher as it dies to any of the removal they have stuck in their hand.
If you want, test 2 Outpost Siege over 2 Vraska. I tried this for a bit. I kept running into situations where I needed to play my threat (Vraska/Siege) and also needed to answer what they had going on. Siege didn't answer but vraska did. It's possible this still isn't the best, four vraska, but I only have myself aggressively testing so it's hard to check all the outcomes.
Another update, went 3-1 at event, losing to poor mulligan + unusual draws by the tron player. I don't think we should expect to lose against tron lol; never saw surgical either. Anyway, the list is still solid and I would love for others to try it out and ask questions about certain cards. The manabase needs a bit of work. It's the same manabase I've been using but something feels like it could be better. Haven't gotten a chance to test Chandra yes, as she isn't legal. However, Grave Titan still does work. I tested Outpost Siege in the main in replace of a titan, it was alright but too finicky. Would rather just have a titan/chandra there.
Your lack of WIldfire makes me sad. Seriously it solves all the decks issues.
With my build you can't actually recover from a Wildfire yourself. So what's the point of it? It constrains both players to draw lands, vs your opponent.
Here's my current list. Sideboard needs less Boil as there are no more twins. Grixis Control is the only other deck, but we should be fine with how few lands they play. Crumble can serve same purpose and hit interesting lands like 1/4 of affinity manabase. Not sold on Crumble.
I took the deck to an IRL event finally and almost went undefeated. Some weird draws (like triple Darksteel Citadel) kind of did me in. Regardless, I think the deck is really well positioned right now. Here's my current list:
I swapped Grave Titan with Chandra, as they serve the same purpose but one can wipe the board. I'm working on figuring out the correct number of walls and utopia sprawls. We dont *need* them but the accel helps. Wall also conveniently blocks as we blow up lands.
Trinisphere from the board is surprisingly really good. You can just land it t2/t3 then play LD spells after. This stops many decks in their tracks, like burn and affinity.
@Obould, You don't need discard spells. What are you going to discard? Their creatures? The spells they weren't going to cast anyways? Their... lands? Our goal is to trim away at their mana and restrict their options, then quickly finish them off with one of our win conditions. Alongside that, we want strong interactive spells like Abrupt Decay and Wrath. This helps us against some of the unfair hyper aggressive creature deceks (Elves, Merfolk, Affinity, Allies, Slivers, Zoo) and the creature based combo decks like Twin or the new Jace. Damnation is important because most of the time you play this deck against creature decks, they WILL get creatures into play which slowly peck away at you. Damnation / Vraska deny that line of play. I also disagree with the need for a repeated card draw engine such as Underworld Connections. I feel that's slower and unnecessary. I could be wrong as I have not tested it, but Painful Truths 3 cards tends to always be enough. And Mutavault is rarely an issue. If you have three lands, Mutavault + X + Y, and one is a fetch and the other isn't a Mountain/Mutavault, you can cast anything. It's very unlikely that in the three lands you get, two of them are Mutavaults/Mountains.
My point with discard was to prevent them to cast the key spells before you get the LD engine going or allowing you to play your game by discarding opponents counters etc. Against hyper aggro decks like affinity, goblins and burn damnation is too slow and thats why pyroclasm is so played (they goldfishes quite consistent turn 4 kills and sometimes even turn 3). With discard you can get the nasty spells from their hand before they hit the board like etched champion, cranial plating, eidolon of the great revel etc. Against blue controls you take their counter away on turn 1 and/or 2 and start doing your thing with LD turn 3.
Then there is "combo" decks like infect and bogles that are hard to deal while they have their permanents on board and functions with quite few lands.
This is true. My list does have many ways to interact other than "lets just wait and pray we can cast our 3-4 drop LD spells and survive". My list runs 2 bolts and 3 decays alongside 4 utopia sprawls to speed things up. It can also just chump with F mage. The sideboard can probably be tailored to handle more aggressive decks. Maybe 3 Damnation is correct in the main with 1 pyroclasm replacing it. Then put the fourth Damnation in the board. That card IS really good btw.
@Obould, You don't need discard spells. What are you going to discard? Their creatures? The spells they weren't going to cast anyways? Their... lands? Our goal is to trim away at their mana and restrict their options, then quickly finish them off with one of our win conditions. Alongside that, we want strong interactive spells like Abrupt Decay and Wrath. This helps us against some of the unfair hyper aggressive creature deceks (Elves, Merfolk, Affinity, Allies, Slivers, Zoo) and the creature based combo decks like Twin or the new Jace. Damnation is important because most of the time you play this deck against creature decks, they WILL get creatures into play which slowly peck away at you. Damnation / Vraska deny that line of play. I also disagree with the need for a repeated card draw engine such as Underworld Connections. I feel that's slower and unnecessary. I could be wrong as I have not tested it, but Painful Truths 3 cards tends to always be enough. And Mutavault is rarely an issue. If you have three lands, Mutavault + X + Y, and one is a fetch and the other isn't a Mountain/Mutavault, you can cast anything. It's very unlikely that in the three lands you get, two of them are Mutavaults/Mountains.
@Master_Hades, Goggles doesn't kill permanents like Vraska does, which sometimes comes up as super important. Goggles also doesn't win us the game, which Vraska does very quickly. Goggles only synergizes with 8-10 cards in our deck. We could use Molten Rain but then Damnation becomes harder to cast. Anger of the Gods is not as good as Damnation. I don't think we need Goggles because I designed this deck to work like this: Remember those games of magics where your opponent passes the turn after missing his third land drop. Then he misses it again. You have made all your land drops and are just playing the good cards, rolling all over him with stuff. That's very one-sided. It wasn't one-sided because you blew up ALL of his lands, but rather because he got behind in the game.
I tried a lot of different ramp spells like birds or signets or spirit guides, but ultimately they all felt mediocre. You really only wanted ONE of that effect ever and drawing one later sucked cause you'd rather have fuel. Utopia Sprawl was the most solid choice as it was difficult to get rid of and fixed your mana colors.
I also tried many of the other LD spells like Wreak Havoc and friends, the ones with utility. I also ran upwards of 20-22 of these spells. I found that a small disruption in their mana and killing off their creatures was enough to keep all decks behind us. We didn't need that many LD spells.
I found I wanted more interaction, which is why I have bolts and decays and the full load of Damnations. This allows us to apply defensive pressure to other decks that would otherwise steamroll over our linear LD plan. Instant speed interaction is important in modern.
The draw 3 lose 3 life spell has been sweet. Still testing more with it if I want more or less copies.
The win cons are a bit odd but have been the best fit win cons I could find after a lot of research. Vraska is a vindicate, as she hits any permanent (we have LD to hit the lands). Otherwise her plus is deadly. Given how resource light our opponents will be, them ramming their creatures into our planeswalker gives us card advantage. Its very hard for them to kill our planeswalker. And they have to do it quickly! She ults fast. I thought of other planeswalkers like Sarkhan, but those can get path to exiled. 3 Assassin tokens are harder to deal with. Grave Titan is also a multi-threat in one. He kills quickly when unanswered and even if he does die he leaves behind a clock.
Sideboard probably needs some refinement. Moons and Chokes are good. S games answers a number of decks. More aoe removal gives us game against hyper aggro decks. Chalice is sick on many levels.
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The RW deck is solid because Ghostly Prison naturally slows down many creature based deck regardless of you blowing up lands. Tabernacle also slows them down.
If you wanted another good one, Avalanche Riders is sweet. Ignore the fact it has echo and just assume it will die next turn. You cast, it can swing to planeswalkers if need, but it's a 2/2 body that blocks creature decks on your turn 3 a good chunk of the time.
As a result, I designed the deck to favor a forest turn 1/2, and double-black by turn 3/4 when you need to sweep. If we throw in a double red card you throw everything off balance.
As a counterpoint, we are arguing that double red for the sake of 2 damage is "worth it." How often is that two damage going to be relevant? We aren't attacking them with creatures, so tacking on a little damage won't actually help use much. When we do attack it's going to be for lethal (Assassins) or for 10 (Grave Titan). The best the 2 damage can serve us is in the face of a Lily or other planeswalker that ticked down. These type of walkers are pretty rare actually in modern, and when they do pop up we have decay/vraska to deal with them.
If you want, test 2 Outpost Siege over 2 Vraska. I tried this for a bit. I kept running into situations where I needed to play my threat (Vraska/Siege) and also needed to answer what they had going on. Siege didn't answer but vraska did. It's possible this still isn't the best, four vraska, but I only have myself aggressively testing so it's hard to check all the outcomes.
4 Fulminator Mage
4 Rain of Tears
4 Wrecking Ball
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Birds of Paradise
4 Utopia Sprawl
1 Pyroclasm
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Damnation
4 Vraska the Unseen
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Raging Ravine
2 Encroaching Wastes
1 Graven Cairns
3 Forest
2 Swamp
3 Trinisphere
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Pyroclasm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Creeping Corrosion
1 Slaughter Games
1 Outpost Siege
1 Boil
With my build you can't actually recover from a Wildfire yourself. So what's the point of it? It constrains both players to draw lands, vs your opponent.
Here's my current list. Sideboard needs less Boil as there are no more twins. Grixis Control is the only other deck, but we should be fine with how few lands they play. Crumble can serve same purpose and hit interesting lands like 1/4 of affinity manabase. Not sold on Crumble.
4 Stone Rain
4 Fulminator Mage
3 Rain of Tears
4 Wrecking Ball
2 Rolling Spoil
2 Wall of Roots
3 Abrupt Decay
1 Terminate
1 Pyroclasm
1 Firespout
2 Damnation
4 Vraska the Unseen
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Raging Ravine
2 Encroaching Wastes
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Trinisphere
3 Kitchen Finks
2 Pyroclasm
2 Surgical Extraction
1 Boil
1 Crumble to Dust
1 Slaughter Games
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Shatterstorm
Cut crumble and grudge for second surgical and clasm. I want to trade balotha for finks.
4 Stone Rain
4 Fulminator Mage
3 Rain of Tears
4 Wrecking Ball
2 Rolling Spoil
2 Wall of Roots
4 Abrupt Decay
1 Pyroclasm
1 Firespout
2 Damnation
4 Vraska the Unseen
0 Grave Titan
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
2 Raging Ravine
2 Encroaching Wastes
3 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Trinisphere
3 Obstinate Baloth
3 Boil
2 Slaughter Games
1 Night of Souls' Betrayal
1 Pyroclasm
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Crumble to Dust
I swapped Grave Titan with Chandra, as they serve the same purpose but one can wipe the board. I'm working on figuring out the correct number of walls and utopia sprawls. We dont *need* them but the accel helps. Wall also conveniently blocks as we blow up lands.
Trinisphere from the board is surprisingly really good. You can just land it t2/t3 then play LD spells after. This stops many decks in their tracks, like burn and affinity.
This is true. My list does have many ways to interact other than "lets just wait and pray we can cast our 3-4 drop LD spells and survive". My list runs 2 bolts and 3 decays alongside 4 utopia sprawls to speed things up. It can also just chump with F mage. The sideboard can probably be tailored to handle more aggressive decks. Maybe 3 Damnation is correct in the main with 1 pyroclasm replacing it. Then put the fourth Damnation in the board. That card IS really good btw.
@Master_Hades, Goggles doesn't kill permanents like Vraska does, which sometimes comes up as super important. Goggles also doesn't win us the game, which Vraska does very quickly. Goggles only synergizes with 8-10 cards in our deck. We could use Molten Rain but then Damnation becomes harder to cast. Anger of the Gods is not as good as Damnation. I don't think we need Goggles because I designed this deck to work like this: Remember those games of magics where your opponent passes the turn after missing his third land drop. Then he misses it again. You have made all your land drops and are just playing the good cards, rolling all over him with stuff. That's very one-sided. It wasn't one-sided because you blew up ALL of his lands, but rather because he got behind in the game.
4 Stone Rain
4 Fulminator Mage
4 Rain of Tears
4 Wrecking Ball
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Painful Truths
3 Abrupt Decay
4 Damnation
4 Vraska the Unseen
2 Grave Titan
4 Verdant Catacombs
3 Overgrown Tomb
2 Blood Crypt
1 Stomping Ground
3 Forest
3 Swamp
1 Mountain
2 Mutavault
3 Blood Moon
3 Choke
2 Slaughter Games
2 Pyroclasm
2 Chalice of the Void
1 Dismember
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Shatterstorm
A few notes:
I tried a lot of different ramp spells like birds or signets or spirit guides, but ultimately they all felt mediocre. You really only wanted ONE of that effect ever and drawing one later sucked cause you'd rather have fuel. Utopia Sprawl was the most solid choice as it was difficult to get rid of and fixed your mana colors.
I also tried many of the other LD spells like Wreak Havoc and friends, the ones with utility. I also ran upwards of 20-22 of these spells. I found that a small disruption in their mana and killing off their creatures was enough to keep all decks behind us. We didn't need that many LD spells.
I found I wanted more interaction, which is why I have bolts and decays and the full load of Damnations. This allows us to apply defensive pressure to other decks that would otherwise steamroll over our linear LD plan. Instant speed interaction is important in modern.
The draw 3 lose 3 life spell has been sweet. Still testing more with it if I want more or less copies.
The win cons are a bit odd but have been the best fit win cons I could find after a lot of research. Vraska is a vindicate, as she hits any permanent (we have LD to hit the lands). Otherwise her plus is deadly. Given how resource light our opponents will be, them ramming their creatures into our planeswalker gives us card advantage. Its very hard for them to kill our planeswalker. And they have to do it quickly! She ults fast. I thought of other planeswalkers like Sarkhan, but those can get path to exiled. 3 Assassin tokens are harder to deal with. Grave Titan is also a multi-threat in one. He kills quickly when unanswered and even if he does die he leaves behind a clock.
Sideboard probably needs some refinement. Moons and Chokes are good. S games answers a number of decks. More aoe removal gives us game against hyper aggro decks. Chalice is sick on many levels.