If you're asking about my list, the main bad matchup is G Tron. It's a tough one - there's really no silver bullet to shore it up, but Great Creator's static is good and you can always go Coating into Lattice.
Humans is traditionally a bad matchup but with 3 Contortion, 3 Dismember, 3 All Is Dust in the 75 along with a Torpor Orb to fetch it feels fine now.
Dredge can also be difficult which is why you see Leylines.
Affinity used to be really bad but Great Creator is a game changer there.
Yeah I've been running it on MTGO lately and have had good success. Had a streak of 4-1,4-1,5-0 in Comp leagues recently with roughly this list. Unlike most people I'm off Chalice completely. It's not very good in the meta right now with Dredge and Humans being 2 of the top decks and with Burn and Shadow being on a downswing. Also now with Great Creator we can fetch Trinisphere which has a similar effect to Chalice. I tested Ugin, the Ineffable and it was fun/powerful but ultimately not what we want to be doing I think. The existing 6/7 drops are better against the field.
Which decks are you worried about Damping Sphere out of? Humans and Hardened Scales play it but they are already awful matchups so it doesn't make a big difference there Sometimes UWx will have it but it's not a huge deal, if you're playing Mind Stones anyway. Most of the cards in the deck cost less than 5 mana so yeah it's not a big deal. Also Ratchet Bomb can kill it.
Right, right. I actually edited that caveat in afterwards but I guess I was right the first time Now that I think of it I probably have been across from Veil and Last Hope at the same time, and there is that mono Gideons deck. Not something you see often in Modern though, for sure.
So I'm thinking Karn, the Great Creator has the potential to breathe new life into Eldrazi Tron. @Tituba9 brought this up and we had a solid brainstorming session around it. Pic attached of what I got to as an early iteration. Just pretend 4 of those Karn, Scion of Urza are Karn, the Great Creator. This deck is really low to the ground and the 3 Mind Stones help us accelerate out our Karns, which gives us fast access to our juicy wishboard. We have a smorgasbord of cards that give us game in ways we've never had preboard before. Grab Torpor Orb against Humans or Primeval Titan decks, Crucible of Worlds or Wurmcoil Engine against BGx, Relic against Dredge or Phoenix, Needle for Tron/Control, Basilisk Collar against Burn or any time we have Endbringer online, etc, etc.
All this utility is great but of course there's also the massive power play of Great Creator + Mycosynth Lattice which completely shuts off all our opponents' lands and activated abilities on any other cards. After that, you can +1 on the Lattice and make a 6/6 to attack or block with. Also, with Lattice active, Scion of Urza makes massive tokens, but you can't lock them out with Creator at the same time due to the legend rule.
Great Creator itself is also a 1-sided maindeck Stony Silence which will surely swing games against Hardened Scales, Affinity, and even Tron, all of which are tough matchups.
The +1 ability has some interesting applications - not just killing 0-mana artifacts like Welding Jar or Mox Opal, but turning other problematic ones (think Amulet of Vigor, Ensnaring Bridge, Sorcerous Spyglass) into creatures and allowing us to remove them with a Ballista or Dismember! Pretty cool stuff.
Scavenger Grounds goes up in value as in the utility land slot because Great Creator can re-buy cards we've exiled.
Obviously this is just an early iteration so nothing is set in stone here. I'm not particularly convinced Trinisphere deserves a slot. It might just be better as a Grafdigger's Cage or something else entirely. Culling Scales is an interesting niche card against the prison decks, for example.
Would love to hear other peoples' thoughts on this.
Sure, at the FNM level that would be fine. Currently for the most part, the only popular decks you really want Chalice against are Phoenix, Burn and Shadow, and there are other tools you can use for those. Maxing out on Dismembers would help against Phoenix and Shadow, and having a bunch of Warping Wails would help against Phoenix and Burn, as examples. Cutting the Chalices also allows you to be more liberal with 1-mana spells because you don't have to worry about the nonbo factor, so you could play as many as 4 Relics main if it suited you, to help fight Phoenix, Dredge (which is a matchup that requires a lot of help), Shadow, etc. Hell, you could even jump straight on the degeneracy train with everyone else these days and play Surgical main. Would be nice in the Tron matchup with the Ghost Quarters.
Elder-Deep Fiend is rad. Do you tweak your mana base to go for the merge cost too? Probably don't need to hehe, just curious if you'd do that.
I have almost all the cards I need to build this deck properly, I just still need to get the expensive cards like 4 Aether Vial, big Karn and stuff like that. I have all the eldrazi, ballistas, tron lands, wurmcoil and stuff like that. Just need to really expensive cards hehe.
I'm just still deciding which deck to go for in modern. This deck in general has just been having it rough the last year or so, so I'm not sure if it'd be worth the money to get the final pieces to make it competitive worthy (aka take it to FNM hehe, that's as competitive I get)
What do you need Aether Vials for? FWIW Karn Liberated is not essential at all, it's just an option for going big. Many lists don't play him.
Hey, thanks for the post. This was beginning to feel like my own personal blog
On that run I lost to Tron, Titan Shift and Counters Company. Not hard to understand why I lost to the first 2, though I actually beat each of them on the same run as well. In the Counters Company match my opponent was on the play and blew up my Map with Knight of Autumn on turn 2 and just got way ahead. In game 2 I mulled and my 6 was mediocre but keepable and just didn't get there.
I had a pretty good run with this list today - 12-3 (5-0, 2-3, 5-0) in 3 leagues. Theres a few notable things here. Firstly the Leylines that I just mentioned. As it turned out I didn't run into Dredge or any other matchups where I'd want them, so they never came in.
The other big thing is that I cut all the Endbringers and replaced them with Wurmcoils. Wurmcoil is just fantastic right now and there's really not many scenarios where you'd rather have Endbringer. Obviously Endbringer is a bit easier to cast due to Temple, but I did not find this to be super relevant. I don't think the difference between 5 and 6 is that big in this deck because once you're at that stage of the game, you're more and more likely to have Tron available anyway so the boost from Temple becomes moot. And it gives you the ability to have the "nut draw" of turn 3 Wurmcoil which, like I alluded to before, is just a lot better than Endbringer these days.
So with the Coils in that slot the lifelink from Batterskull becomes less relevant, plus it becomes harder to justify playing more clunky spells so I opted for the Baby Karns instead. Just 4 generic mana is pretty easily attainable in any game. I can't say they really won me any games but they did reasonable work. I'd definitely consider them the 59th and 60th cards though - they could be some mix of Warping Wail, Mind Stone or Dismember as well.
I also played the Ulamog/Sanctum of Ugin package. I wanted more game against Tron and obviously it's good in a lot of other scenarios like control, combo, and just going over the top in general. Sanctum is actually fairly easy to trigger because you can just fire off a huge Chalice for it, All is Dust, in addition to the Ballistas. In one game against Titan Shift I actually won by casting All is Dust killing nothing just to trigger Sanctum, and grabbed a Reality Smasher to swing for lethal when I would have been dead to the Scapeshift on the top of his deck the following turn. So it's definitely a nice tool to have.
So I abandoned the above list pretty quickly. I knew Dredge would be tough with that configuration but it's more than tough. You really need Relics to have a shot cause like I said earlier Surgical is pretty impotent against them nowadays. Even Grafdigger's Cage isn't amazing because they can still Chill through it. With Grudges plus Trophy and Nature's Claim it's really easy for them to destroy our lifegain artifacts as well. I think if you wanna have a good shot of winning the matchup you want to be playing Leyline of the Void or Ravenous Trap, in addition to Relics. I'll be trying something like this soon.
Tron still feels really tough too. Somehow I actually had a positive record in the matchup during my 2017 run, but right now it just feels hopeless. The games I win are super-close nailbiters, and the ones I lose are just complete blowouts. It's never easy.
Despite this I'm still doing pretty well overall though - about 64% winrate in Friendly over 115 matches since the end of Jan. So the deck is still good enough for me to justify continuing to tinker with it.
This is where I'm at with the deck right now. The 2 Batterskulls main - I like this a lot better than Karn, Scion in that slot. It plays the same role against midrange and control, while being better against a lot of the field. In matchups like Hollow One and Spirits it allows you to race where the tokens from Karn don't do a great job of blocking. It's great against Burn and Dredge, where Karn doesn't do much at all, and it's solid against the Phoenix decks too. Lifegain is just really good in general right now, hence the Collar and Wurmcoil staying main in addition to the BSkulls. Up to 2 Mind Stone to help cast them.
2 Tectonic Edge in the land flex slots. This is a real effective plan against Tron which is a tough matchup, especially with the Crucible in the side. Also very good against control and Amulet/Valakut. The Radiant Fountain was kind of an emergency measure vs Burn but now it has died down a bit so I like the powerhouse card in Tec Edge. I think 1/1 Tec Edge/Buried Ruin split would also be good but I've been losing to Tron a lot so I want to shore that up.
Decided on Surgicals over Relics for GY hate, at least for now. I'm losing Relic against Shadow and BGx but I don't actually think this matters much as this build already has enough good cards for those matchups. Against Phoenix Relic is probably better but it's not a huge difference. The main downside is Surgical is definitely worse than Relic against Dredge, but Surgical is better against Tron, Amulet and Valakut, so I think Surgical wins out. I'm relying more on the lifegain plan to beat Dredge with this build.
Tons of tools for creature decks rounding out the SB, with Warping Wail doing double duty as a counterspell vs Dredge, Burn, Phoenix, Valakut, Living End, etc.
Mainly Grixis Shadow and BGx. Shadow usually only has 1 or 2 threats and Hangarback often represents 3 or more chump blockers, which buys us tons of time. The Thopters can also turn the tables and threaten to kill them quite quickly because they can't block them and they get to a low life total naturally. Against BGx it makes Liliana look really silly which is otherwise their best card against us. It's also fine as a speed bump against Humans, Burn and others, and it's great in the mirror if you ever see it.
Yeah, agree. The cool thing about the deck is it's really customizable so you can potentially tune it to beat a certain local meta or take advantage of a particular trend, but I think it's really hard for it to be good against the field as it stands now, no matter how you construct it.
I think there's room for improvement in the list I posted though. I'm thinking about cutting the Surgicals entirely. The card is just not good enough against Dredge anymore now that they have Creeping Chill - they just have too many cards that matter. Chill makes that matchup a lot harder in general. Surgical can be good against Gx Tron and Phoenix but it's a really bad nonbo with our Chalice plan so I wouldn't feel too bad about losing it. We have enough against Storm already. I would miss it against Amulet though.
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Humans is traditionally a bad matchup but with 3 Contortion, 3 Dismember, 3 All Is Dust in the 75 along with a Torpor Orb to fetch it feels fine now.
Dredge can also be difficult which is why you see Leylines.
Affinity used to be really bad but Great Creator is a game changer there.
All this utility is great but of course there's also the massive power play of Great Creator + Mycosynth Lattice which completely shuts off all our opponents' lands and activated abilities on any other cards. After that, you can +1 on the Lattice and make a 6/6 to attack or block with. Also, with Lattice active, Scion of Urza makes massive tokens, but you can't lock them out with Creator at the same time due to the legend rule.
Great Creator itself is also a 1-sided maindeck Stony Silence which will surely swing games against Hardened Scales, Affinity, and even Tron, all of which are tough matchups.
The +1 ability has some interesting applications - not just killing 0-mana artifacts like Welding Jar or Mox Opal, but turning other problematic ones (think Amulet of Vigor, Ensnaring Bridge, Sorcerous Spyglass) into creatures and allowing us to remove them with a Ballista or Dismember! Pretty cool stuff.
Scavenger Grounds goes up in value as in the utility land slot because Great Creator can re-buy cards we've exiled.
Obviously this is just an early iteration so nothing is set in stone here. I'm not particularly convinced Trinisphere deserves a slot. It might just be better as a Grafdigger's Cage or something else entirely. Culling Scales is an interesting niche card against the prison decks, for example.
Would love to hear other peoples' thoughts on this.
On that run I lost to Tron, Titan Shift and Counters Company. Not hard to understand why I lost to the first 2, though I actually beat each of them on the same run as well. In the Counters Company match my opponent was on the play and blew up my Map with Knight of Autumn on turn 2 and just got way ahead. In game 2 I mulled and my 6 was mediocre but keepable and just didn't get there.
The other big thing is that I cut all the Endbringers and replaced them with Wurmcoils. Wurmcoil is just fantastic right now and there's really not many scenarios where you'd rather have Endbringer. Obviously Endbringer is a bit easier to cast due to Temple, but I did not find this to be super relevant. I don't think the difference between 5 and 6 is that big in this deck because once you're at that stage of the game, you're more and more likely to have Tron available anyway so the boost from Temple becomes moot. And it gives you the ability to have the "nut draw" of turn 3 Wurmcoil which, like I alluded to before, is just a lot better than Endbringer these days.
So with the Coils in that slot the lifelink from Batterskull becomes less relevant, plus it becomes harder to justify playing more clunky spells so I opted for the Baby Karns instead. Just 4 generic mana is pretty easily attainable in any game. I can't say they really won me any games but they did reasonable work. I'd definitely consider them the 59th and 60th cards though - they could be some mix of Warping Wail, Mind Stone or Dismember as well.
I also played the Ulamog/Sanctum of Ugin package. I wanted more game against Tron and obviously it's good in a lot of other scenarios like control, combo, and just going over the top in general. Sanctum is actually fairly easy to trigger because you can just fire off a huge Chalice for it, All is Dust, in addition to the Ballistas. In one game against Titan Shift I actually won by casting All is Dust killing nothing just to trigger Sanctum, and grabbed a Reality Smasher to swing for lethal when I would have been dead to the Scapeshift on the top of his deck the following turn. So it's definitely a nice tool to have.
Tron still feels really tough too. Somehow I actually had a positive record in the matchup during my 2017 run, but right now it just feels hopeless. The games I win are super-close nailbiters, and the ones I lose are just complete blowouts. It's never easy.
Despite this I'm still doing pretty well overall though - about 64% winrate in Friendly over 115 matches since the end of Jan. So the deck is still good enough for me to justify continuing to tinker with it.
2 Tectonic Edge in the land flex slots. This is a real effective plan against Tron which is a tough matchup, especially with the Crucible in the side. Also very good against control and Amulet/Valakut. The Radiant Fountain was kind of an emergency measure vs Burn but now it has died down a bit so I like the powerhouse card in Tec Edge. I think 1/1 Tec Edge/Buried Ruin split would also be good but I've been losing to Tron a lot so I want to shore that up.
Decided on Surgicals over Relics for GY hate, at least for now. I'm losing Relic against Shadow and BGx but I don't actually think this matters much as this build already has enough good cards for those matchups. Against Phoenix Relic is probably better but it's not a huge difference. The main downside is Surgical is definitely worse than Relic against Dredge, but Surgical is better against Tron, Amulet and Valakut, so I think Surgical wins out. I'm relying more on the lifegain plan to beat Dredge with this build.
Tons of tools for creature decks rounding out the SB, with Warping Wail doing double duty as a counterspell vs Dredge, Burn, Phoenix, Valakut, Living End, etc.