For manlands, is Colonade just significantly better than the other lands and people just choose to run shambling or tarpit because they don't have access to white and blue or is Tarpit and Shambling more designed for more aggro strategies?
Colonnade is a great finisher but I find with 22 lands it's not worth running more than 1. Creeping tar pit is amazing and shambling vent has proven it's worth against any deck using red
This is very heartening for me to see because I've been playing with a deck that is fueled by jace, liliana, and souls. jace is the real deal, no questions asked. the 2 the guys plays in that top 8 is not enough. also liliana is as good as ever so why only play 1 I don't know. and they both interact so dirty with souls. Just beat an Abzan opponent, for example, but have been playing the current version for a little while now, previously playing a different sideboard but identical mb. I think the deck has what it takes.
There is a lot there but I want to point out specifically the manland suite, which is really the way to keep the threat density high. We play a lot of one drops and can operate on that down-a-land just fine with this build and is also why disfigure is so good. I have found murderous cut to compete with tasigur and jace too much and being able to play a one drop no questions asked to kill that early threat is what this deck needs. Mentor is still a premium threat and I've found that 2 is just enough to impact some games but not having 4 means you don't lean on it. Tasigur is beats. It's a really clean build that maxes out the utility of jace and snap, while providing just the needed threats to close out games, often falling back on manlands. GY hate hurts, but disenchent is the difference between grixis and esper. Zealous persecution is the much needed wrath that I will never again cut after a short haitus on it. I could hear arguments for sideboarding it, but this list is really tight after playing and tuning esper mentor since march.
The sauce at the end of the sideboard to really KO any matchup. Mage into Iona just beats so many uninteractive decks. Elesh norn does her thing and where those two don't cut it, the gifts for value usually is better anyway (jund, abzan). I have moved completely away from counters *gasp* and not looked back. I'd rather flood on discard and use jace and liliana to filter than risk not drawing that first turn interaction that can disrupt until I get online. everything else is purely necessary. Removal for creatures because apart from tasigur, esper doesn't have creatures that compete. disenchant and timely because we are playing white.
Ya elspeth was my finisher of choice. I can actually see the planes walker angle being more fruitful with Gideon and ashiok. Though Gideon seems like the real superstar.
I've been running this version of Esper hatebears for a long ass time now, like over a year. It's interesting to see someone start using the meddling/sculler package I thought would be the place Esper wanted to be. It's pretty clear that if Esper wants to be a midrange deck like Jund or junk that it needs to have some aolid two drops, just like them. And these are our guys.
Unfortunately, the deck always lacked oomph and was always terrible against other creature decks. I like your enthusiasm for the package. I was very enchanted with it when I brewed it a while ago, but I'm thoroughly convinced after many different versions that it does not have what it takes. Maybe tasigur added something to it, but I just want to warn the masses that it's a giant headache of a deck. Meddling Mage lacks the structure for it to be great. Modern is too creature centric for this kind of deck to be anything other than a pain. Mentor could at least deal with threats by overloading on removal and because mentor allowed you to easily go wide to block and then crack back with a flurry of spells. Esper has a fundamental problem that it's creatures are wholy and entirely outclassed by green's. It always pushes esper and blue generally to either tempo delver or bigger control to go over the top of the green creatures.
I hate to be a downer, but as someone who played this type of deck for a year, I just have a lot of experience with these downfalls. Might be good in this meta, though. It always crushed any kind of deck that didn't rely on beating you with creature bashing.
I was playing some modern today (just 3 rounds, ended 2:1). Lost against Affinity.
Nothing that special, game 1 I was able to deal with his only threat using discard. Game 2 I was screwed.
Game 3 though was interesting: He played an Etched Champion I was absolutely not able to deal with.
He attacked me once with a Cranial Plating attached, I was able to play Zealous Persecution, so I took only 5 by killing some of his smaller dudes and making he Champion smaller. Then I drew Disenchant. I was able to kill the Plating. Still that stupid Champion kept attacking me, and my Spirit Tokens just looked silly ^^'
So do you have any idea how to deal with that thing ? I basically had just one option: Persecution into Snappy - Persecution. But that's 6 mana and 2 cards...
I came up with Engineered Explosives and Damnation/Wrath of God/Supreme Verdict.
Are there other possibilities that I missed so far ?
What are you guys / girls playing as affinity-hate in the side ?
Thanks for reading and maybe answering ^^
I was going to say something cute like don't forget sorin, solemn visitor ultimate, but honestly I have really liked the wraths in the board. They may just be a crutch, but I swear this deck needs a two for one removal bad.
It's worth noting that in paper I own a batterskull, which is just great with wrath, but on mtgo I don't want to shell out so much for it, so I use blood baron of vizkopa and it still is fine since I usually curve wrath into baron in those match ups. He is so good btw. Sometimes I question whether he should actually be in instead of batterskull. He just completely shuts down some decks.
Just lived the dream of being on the play turn three dropping a ghost quarter and shadow of doubt their fetch leaving them with no land on untap. It was absolutely devastating and they just scooped. Seems like the combo can be strong along with path to exile. I'm trying this out after reading Anthony lowry's article on SCG where he covers the current state of modern. I'm not going all in with his plan of cryptic command, but that's mostly because I'm scared to pull the trigger on the cmc. I'm putting in logic knot for the spot. And I'm doing all of this in place of the gitaxian probe to try out. I really don't think there are too many flex spots anyway and I replaced thought scour with vapor snag for a while to see if I would miss it and while snag certainly did some cool things saving mentor, I definitely missed the delve fuel
Hey so I've been lurking/playing MONASTERY MENTOR for a while and I've decided to post now because the last couple of posts really hit a chord with what I've been experiencing. I've been working, tweaking, testing a lot of main deck and sideboard configurations. The deck and my comments separately below, as it is a bit of read, forgive me.
for the tl;dr The deck's main threat is mentor and tasigur. If this deck is to take any free wins, it will be off of turn 2 tasigur or stabilize into turn 3/4 mentor. counters always proved somewhat underwhelming and awkward to this plan because the fit the first half of stabilizing, but not the second half of getting the free win. Started running GITAXIAN PROBE to relegate the last few counters to the board. Added the sorely needed GHOST QUARTER as the twenty-third land (though could easily be TECTONIC EDGE to one's taste, I personally like the "free" nature of it in an already mana hungry deck), a GURMAG ANGLER since I can't stand drawing 2 TASIGUR, THE GOLDEN FANG and a WRATH, SORIN, SOLEMN VISITOR, BATTERSKULL package to the board. I like how smooth it runs like this and the board is powerful. Gonna test a bunch with this config. I have some doubts, but they are mostly against specific matchups. I've played the deck enough to know that this is very close to the correct config unless I'm not understanding something and being a noob (which is oft to happen).
After watching the Starcitygames premium video (love/hate that app. did pee my pants the morning I saw it tho, not gonna lie) and my own suspicions that gitaxian probe and mentor were meant to be. It's so nice to setup turn 1 and 2, drop mentor, probe into gas, drop a token and be in a commanding position turn 4. I've been sold on it for a while and never looked back. You just get down to what this deck is designed to do much quicker. You may lose some due to the lack of counters, but remand is soft, and snare is a liability. You will make up for the losses eventually with more easy wins, of which this deck I think needs more.
Which conveniently brings me to my next topic, threats. When I analyzed the threat axis of the deck, I saw mentor, tasigur, souls, tarpit. The whole thing works because mentor wants spells to be cast and tasigur wants to exile them from the graveyard. Souls is just great for many reasons, but powerfully so with mentor and the yard. Tarpit just plays into the deck's macro-level midrange goals, which brings us to an intermission.
Why is this deck a midrange deck and grixis delver a tempo deck? One could point to the threats to answer the question; delver vs mentor. But the interesting thing is the cast of cards that accompanies each. Delver drops, then exploits cheap board and stack interaction for the kill. We, again, disrupt and stabilize into mentor. Imagine a straight mish mash of the two decks in Mardu.
It's just kind of ugly. A ton of fun, but what? It's got no identity. While the delver/mentor juxtaposition is the most glaring difference between grixis and esper, a more subtle and explanatory one may be bolt/seize. I have tried to embrace this difference as I've learned more about both decks and I think they are key to explaining the tempo/midrange identity.
Anyway, back to threats. As we disrupt and remove mentor and tasigur get turned on and I really want a the maximum possible of that combination. The thing is that 3 tasigur is too much. But you need another, just not two more because 4 is too many anyway because of delve considerations. So mise a gurmag angler I say! The lack of threats is also addressed in the sideboard, and I'll highlight Sorin because he always felt clunky in the main.
A final word on the main deck land changes, I do believe 4 pits is not needed, though I wouldn't blame anyone for it. I like another plains tho; I've grown fond of basics. Also, I think anyone who has played the deck has come across a time when they have felt that "if only I had land destruction right now". Quarter is my concession to both the ld and the mana problem that is often cited.
SIDEBOARD
I'll start with a word on the archetypes. This deck is on the map because of its matchup against twin. It really is great and doesn't need much in the board. As long as we hit some incidental spells that are good to bring in against them we'll be good to take out the couple stinkers we may have.
Burn, on the other hand, is a major problem for the concept of the main deck. If Death's Shadow fit in the deck, it certainly could be playable by turn 3 or 4 as anyone can attest. For a while I didn't understand the sideboard of the original list. But now I see that it is really almost completely dedicated to burn. In my sideboard, I will bring in 11 cards for burn. It is imperative that these cards can also fill other roles. This really is an underlying theme for most of the cards in the board.
Another such theme is Rock decks. They are the kind of grind and we need everything at our disposal to match them at halvsies. This is a direct result of the green vs blue in our midrange deck. We need some powerful plays to tilt the scales back in our favor and that is really what drove me to include some specific bullets for rock that fit the anti-burn theme.
There is also the mandatory anti-artifact cards that deserve their mandatory one-sentence paragraph.
Duress is a concession to burn, as seize is just too painful. Major winners are Creatures 4cmc and higher. They have to be dealt with on board. On the other hand, you really want to bring that in to fight noncreature cards anyway.
Logic knot is a great card. The deck exploits the yard with scour and probe and is a great 1 of. I have seldom been in situations when I don’t' have enough resources to counter what I want with ti. Flashfreeze rounds out the counters as a well-situated card right now (it's possible the second freeze should be a negate, but I like where freeze is at right now).
Starting with freeze, the Abzan splash of the board continues with the always-relevant celestial purge and is a better removal spell to bring in against burn than the black based ones. Timely reinforcements, is quite good in both matchups and Sorin and Batterskull round out the high end. My personal touch is phyrexian unlife for the diversification to round out the burn board. It really presents a gameplan at all levels against burn, the pieces of which can be applied to various other matchups. I think reinforcements is a concession to the Abzan matchup, where kor firewalker may be the better card in the slot. It's quite the beast and it's at the lacking 2 drop spot. Testing will show I'm sure.
The rock plan really revolves around the sorely needed wrath of god and works well with souls, sorin, batterskull, and tasigur on turn 5, which is a great play. I can't stress enough the importance of threat density against rock. The 2 sideboard permanents are resilient and powerful threats to present in the mathcup that work well with wrath and the elusive big-creature two-for-one is needed in this and many other matchups, notably zoo, merfolk, and boggles. It's also ok in affinity, which, with zealous persecution, completes the abzan streak. Persecution is great against and with souls and great in other matchups. I would run 2 because I think it's so well position, but I do think that the split with wrath is better.
Finally, obligatory stony silence and disenchant are obligatory. though it's very possible this should just be 2 disenchants.
That about does it. I'm happy with this configuration and I'll be testing it for a while. I feel good about it because it's just so focused. I used to have 2 logic knots instead of the angler and quarter, but I didn't feel good about them in certain matchups. I think the deck now presents a coherent game 1 plan that can get easier kills and board into a coherent plan against the format's top weak matchups. I honestly believe this deck has, or at the very least be tuned, to have game against most of the random decks you'll come across in the format if it can present this game 1 and follow up with a variety of versatile questions and answers.
Edit:
2-0 Abzan
Game 1 went off with Monk and probe, t4 2 scours and a pact on his goyf to attack in for 9.
Game 2: grind fest. I blast a quarter early, responds with a fulminator. I get all my basics out to counter a tec edge later. Gets liliana down, I cast/flash souls, persecution into kill her, souls top deck to finish off. Had wrath and another souls in hand in case things got fishy. feels good man.
all business basically. top decks have to be at their best
0-2 Norin Tremors
ugh. terrible. tbh though I had game if i drew persecution or wrath.
1-2 br zombie blood chief ascension
i boarded wrong the second match cause I haven't played too much against this deck. Could a had the games I lost. Seems beatable. Update: I do think I will end up changing stony silence to disenchant. The versatility is too good
1-2 twin
I'm crashing. Tired. Lots of missplays. Should have had him both games I lost but punted. First one didn't path lavamancer before my turn ended so he untapped and killed me with it. Second game I had been keeping up freeze for a Keranos I knew about from a seize and I stupidly forgot and attacked with pit. Won the first game obviously
Thoughts after a bit of testing. Smooth and felt like i had game against everything but norin and really did because of persecution if i had mised it. I did change the disenchant in the board and am debating whether the watery grave should be a hallowed fountain. on the other hand i like 2 plains so fountain might be overkill. Ghost quarter was a delight to draw every time i did. and the angler did work in the game he came out.
The only real thing I can think of is a mix between lump sum life gain vs incremental. My feeling is an early dragon's claw, forcing their skullcrack, followed by a rest for the weary can be the time we need to get a monastery mentor online. Plus that they are both noncrearure spells to trigger him! I have not found kor firewalker or timely reinforcements particularly good. The former is a creature with a horrendous casting cost that gets wrecked by blood moon and the latter is really just an overcosted gain life when we have so many souls running around...
The permission doesn't seem like that big of a deal, but spell snare has so many solid targets in the meta and remand has always been good, but it's even more insane with monastery mentor when you remand your slaughter pact and cast it again on a token with sickness and get 3 prowess triggers. If you had one or two monk tokens from a previous turn, that's a ton of damage in one swing. Can really catch people off guard.
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Colonnade is a great finisher but I find with 22 lands it's not worth running more than 1. Creeping tar pit is amazing and shambling vent has proven it's worth against any deck using red
This is very heartening for me to see because I've been playing with a deck that is fueled by jace, liliana, and souls. jace is the real deal, no questions asked. the 2 the guys plays in that top 8 is not enough. also liliana is as good as ever so why only play 1 I don't know. and they both interact so dirty with souls. Just beat an Abzan opponent, for example, but have been playing the current version for a little while now, previously playing a different sideboard but identical mb. I think the deck has what it takes.
4 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
3 Liliana of the Veil
2 Monastery Mentor
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
4 Snapcaster Mage
4 Serum Visions
2 Thought Scour
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
2 Disfigure
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Shambling Vent
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Island
1 Swamp
1 Plains
1 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
2 Flooded Strand
4 Polluted Delta
3 Marsh Flats
2 Go for the Throat
2 Disenchant
2 Timely Reinforcements
2 Meddling Mage
2 Gifts Ungiven
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
1 Unburial Rites
There is a lot there but I want to point out specifically the manland suite, which is really the way to keep the threat density high. We play a lot of one drops and can operate on that down-a-land just fine with this build and is also why disfigure is so good. I have found murderous cut to compete with tasigur and jace too much and being able to play a one drop no questions asked to kill that early threat is what this deck needs. Mentor is still a premium threat and I've found that 2 is just enough to impact some games but not having 4 means you don't lean on it. Tasigur is beats. It's a really clean build that maxes out the utility of jace and snap, while providing just the needed threats to close out games, often falling back on manlands. GY hate hurts, but disenchent is the difference between grixis and esper. Zealous persecution is the much needed wrath that I will never again cut after a short haitus on it. I could hear arguments for sideboarding it, but this list is really tight after playing and tuning esper mentor since march.
The sauce at the end of the sideboard to really KO any matchup. Mage into Iona just beats so many uninteractive decks. Elesh norn does her thing and where those two don't cut it, the gifts for value usually is better anyway (jund, abzan). I have moved completely away from counters *gasp* and not looked back. I'd rather flood on discard and use jace and liliana to filter than risk not drawing that first turn interaction that can disrupt until I get online. everything else is purely necessary. Removal for creatures because apart from tasigur, esper doesn't have creatures that compete. disenchant and timely because we are playing white.
Unfortunately, the deck always lacked oomph and was always terrible against other creature decks. I like your enthusiasm for the package. I was very enchanted with it when I brewed it a while ago, but I'm thoroughly convinced after many different versions that it does not have what it takes. Maybe tasigur added something to it, but I just want to warn the masses that it's a giant headache of a deck. Meddling Mage lacks the structure for it to be great. Modern is too creature centric for this kind of deck to be anything other than a pain. Mentor could at least deal with threats by overloading on removal and because mentor allowed you to easily go wide to block and then crack back with a flurry of spells. Esper has a fundamental problem that it's creatures are wholy and entirely outclassed by green's. It always pushes esper and blue generally to either tempo delver or bigger control to go over the top of the green creatures.
I hate to be a downer, but as someone who played this type of deck for a year, I just have a lot of experience with these downfalls. Might be good in this meta, though. It always crushed any kind of deck that didn't rely on beating you with creature bashing.
I was going to say something cute like don't forget sorin, solemn visitor ultimate, but honestly I have really liked the wraths in the board. They may just be a crutch, but I swear this deck needs a two for one removal bad.
It's worth noting that in paper I own a batterskull, which is just great with wrath, but on mtgo I don't want to shell out so much for it, so I use blood baron of vizkopa and it still is fine since I usually curve wrath into baron in those match ups. He is so good btw. Sometimes I question whether he should actually be in instead of batterskull. He just completely shuts down some decks.
for the tl;dr The deck's main threat is mentor and tasigur. If this deck is to take any free wins, it will be off of turn 2 tasigur or stabilize into turn 3/4 mentor. counters always proved somewhat underwhelming and awkward to this plan because the fit the first half of stabilizing, but not the second half of getting the free win. Started running GITAXIAN PROBE to relegate the last few counters to the board. Added the sorely needed GHOST QUARTER as the twenty-third land (though could easily be TECTONIC EDGE to one's taste, I personally like the "free" nature of it in an already mana hungry deck), a GURMAG ANGLER since I can't stand drawing 2 TASIGUR, THE GOLDEN FANG and a WRATH, SORIN, SOLEMN VISITOR, BATTERSKULL package to the board. I like how smooth it runs like this and the board is powerful. Gonna test a bunch with this config. I have some doubts, but they are mostly against specific matchups. I've played the deck enough to know that this is very close to the correct config unless I'm not understanding something and being a noob (which is oft to happen).
2 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Flooded Strand
1 Marsh Flats
2 Watery Grave
1 Godless Shrine
1 Hallowed Fountain
3 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Vault of the Archangel
1 Ghost Quarter
4 Monastery Mentor
2 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Gurmag Angler
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
2 Thoughtseize
4 Path to Exile
2 Murderous Cut
2 Slaughter Pact
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Thought Scour
4 Lingering Souls
1 Duress
1 Logic Knot
2 Flashfreeze
2 Celestial Purge
2 Timely Reinforcements
1 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1 Batterskull
1 Wrath of God
1 Zealous Persecution
2 Disenchant
Maindeck
Which conveniently brings me to my next topic, threats. When I analyzed the threat axis of the deck, I saw mentor, tasigur, souls, tarpit. The whole thing works because mentor wants spells to be cast and tasigur wants to exile them from the graveyard. Souls is just great for many reasons, but powerfully so with mentor and the yard. Tarpit just plays into the deck's macro-level midrange goals, which brings us to an intermission.
Why is this deck a midrange deck and grixis delver a tempo deck? One could point to the threats to answer the question; delver vs mentor. But the interesting thing is the cast of cards that accompanies each. Delver drops, then exploits cheap board and stack interaction for the kill. We, again, disrupt and stabilize into mentor. Imagine a straight mish mash of the two decks in Mardu.
4 Monastery Mentor
3 Gurmag Angler
4 Path to Exile
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Faithless Looting
4 Lightning Helix
4 Lingering Souls
3 Kolaghan's Command
It's just kind of ugly. A ton of fun, but what? It's got no identity. While the delver/mentor juxtaposition is the most glaring difference between grixis and esper, a more subtle and explanatory one may be bolt/seize. I have tried to embrace this difference as I've learned more about both decks and I think they are key to explaining the tempo/midrange identity.
Anyway, back to threats. As we disrupt and remove mentor and tasigur get turned on and I really want a the maximum possible of that combination. The thing is that 3 tasigur is too much. But you need another, just not two more because 4 is too many anyway because of delve considerations. So mise a gurmag angler I say! The lack of threats is also addressed in the sideboard, and I'll highlight Sorin because he always felt clunky in the main.
A final word on the main deck land changes, I do believe 4 pits is not needed, though I wouldn't blame anyone for it. I like another plains tho; I've grown fond of basics. Also, I think anyone who has played the deck has come across a time when they have felt that "if only I had land destruction right now". Quarter is my concession to both the ld and the mana problem that is often cited.
Burn, on the other hand, is a major problem for the concept of the main deck. If Death's Shadow fit in the deck, it certainly could be playable by turn 3 or 4 as anyone can attest. For a while I didn't understand the sideboard of the original list. But now I see that it is really almost completely dedicated to burn. In my sideboard, I will bring in 11 cards for burn. It is imperative that these cards can also fill other roles. This really is an underlying theme for most of the cards in the board.
Another such theme is Rock decks. They are the kind of grind and we need everything at our disposal to match them at halvsies. This is a direct result of the green vs blue in our midrange deck. We need some powerful plays to tilt the scales back in our favor and that is really what drove me to include some specific bullets for rock that fit the anti-burn theme.
There is also the mandatory anti-artifact cards that deserve their mandatory one-sentence paragraph.
Duress is a concession to burn, as seize is just too painful. Major winners are Creatures 4cmc and higher. They have to be dealt with on board. On the other hand, you really want to bring that in to fight noncreature cards anyway.
Logic knot is a great card. The deck exploits the yard with scour and probe and is a great 1 of. I have seldom been in situations when I don’t' have enough resources to counter what I want with ti. Flashfreeze rounds out the counters as a well-situated card right now (it's possible the second freeze should be a negate, but I like where freeze is at right now).
Starting with freeze, the Abzan splash of the board continues with the always-relevant celestial purge and is a better removal spell to bring in against burn than the black based ones. Timely reinforcements, is quite good in both matchups and Sorin and Batterskull round out the high end. My personal touch is phyrexian unlife for the diversification to round out the burn board. It really presents a gameplan at all levels against burn, the pieces of which can be applied to various other matchups. I think reinforcements is a concession to the Abzan matchup, where kor firewalker may be the better card in the slot. It's quite the beast and it's at the lacking 2 drop spot. Testing will show I'm sure.
The rock plan really revolves around the sorely needed wrath of god and works well with souls, sorin, batterskull, and tasigur on turn 5, which is a great play. I can't stress enough the importance of threat density against rock. The 2 sideboard permanents are resilient and powerful threats to present in the mathcup that work well with wrath and the elusive big-creature two-for-one is needed in this and many other matchups, notably zoo, merfolk, and boggles. It's also ok in affinity, which, with zealous persecution, completes the abzan streak. Persecution is great against and with souls and great in other matchups. I would run 2 because I think it's so well position, but I do think that the split with wrath is better.
Finally, obligatory stony silence and disenchant are obligatory. though it's very possible this should just be 2 disenchants.
Edit:
2-0 Abzan
Game 2: grind fest. I blast a quarter early, responds with a fulminator. I get all my basics out to counter a tec edge later. Gets liliana down, I cast/flash souls, persecution into kill her, souls top deck to finish off. Had wrath and another souls in hand in case things got fishy. feels good man.
SB: +2 purge, +2 freeze, +1 wrath, +1 sorin, +1 batterskull, +1 persecution, +2 timely. -4 inquisition,-2 seize, -4 probe.
all business basically. top decks have to be at their best
0-2 Norin Tremors
1-2 br zombie blood chief ascension
1-2 twin
SB: +2 purge, +2 freeze, +1 duress, +1 knot. -2 cut, -4 souls. If I smell Keranos grind, +1 persecution, +1 wrath, +1 sorin, +1 batterskull. -4 probe
Thoughts after a bit of testing. Smooth and felt like i had game against everything but norin and really did because of persecution if i had mised it. I did change the disenchant in the board and am debating whether the watery grave should be a hallowed fountain. on the other hand i like 2 plains so fountain might be overkill. Ghost quarter was a delight to draw every time i did. and the angler did work in the game he came out.
The only real thing I can think of is a mix between lump sum life gain vs incremental. My feeling is an early dragon's claw, forcing their skullcrack, followed by a rest for the weary can be the time we need to get a monastery mentor online. Plus that they are both noncrearure spells to trigger him! I have not found kor firewalker or timely reinforcements particularly good. The former is a creature with a horrendous casting cost that gets wrecked by blood moon and the latter is really just an overcosted gain life when we have so many souls running around...