The list looks pretty solid, and really it comes down to sculpting your enchantment package to the meta. I like Reverence over Meishin for example, since it's easier to hardcast when needed in a pinch. Otherwise, Pharexian Unlife is still on the debate train for me. Has anyone settled on REALLY liking it a lot?
The list looks pretty solid, and really it comes down to sculpting your enchantment package to the meta. I like Reverence over Meishin for example, since it's easier to hardcast when needed in a pinch. Otherwise, Pharexian Unlife is still on the debate train for me. Has anyone settled on REALLY liking it a lot?
I've been playing a version of enduring ideal with phyrexian unlife in the main and it does seem to help in the aggro/burn matchups. There have been several times where I was up against a B/R aggro deck and was close to 0 life at the time I cast ideal. In that situation, unlife is nice since it gives you a life buffer and then on the following turn you can cast dovescape or form of the dragon or whatever. It's also pretty easy to hard cast. There have been a few game ones where I would cast unlife and my opponent remands it or uses some sort of enchantment hate against it thinking that it is a key piece to the deck.
Can't help but notice your location Matt... you bringing the deck to the PTQ this weekend?
Unfortuneately, my paper magic collection was sold off after my daughter was born (no time for face to face play), but I play on MTGO quite a bit and have been tinkering with the enduring ideal deck. I'm a sucker for under appreciated archetypes.
Fair enough! I was going to bring Eggs to the event, but after Loam became a big OMG this weekend I didn't want to become a victem of the Hate people will be packing against it. I was considering this deck, but I didn't have time to practice with it... so off to a Standard game day and save myself $25.
Am I the only person running Wheel of Sun and Moon in my sideboard? I feel like it hoses Living End decks..
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Currently playing:
Modern: WUBRG Tribal Zoo WUBRG
Legacy: UG Post UG
Commander: RUG Maelstrom Wanderer (competitive) RUG WUBRG Progenitus 67-land control WUBRG WUBRG Horde of Notions (competitive French) WUBRG
Time to start winning--get out Form of the Dragon.
I guess after this, we can probably conclude that if you're going to die to creatures, get out Meishin first, and if you're going to die to non-creature spells, get out Dovescape first.
imo, other combo is already handled, and boesiju / our own counters handle protection (if you run that way)
what i've been having trouble with is affinity and delver. what strong answers we got against those? and aura of silence just doesn't come down early enough, is there a Kataki, War's Wage in enchantment form?
Only one in modern is Silent Arbiter. But alas; it is not exactly friendly with our enchantment only shenanigans.
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Saying that you sometimes wish people (in this case the implication is the staff) would fall down a well and get AIDS is hardly appropriate for the forum.
There's a bad Dueling Grounds in Modern called Ghostly Prison. Heck, against the uber-land-light Affinity, it may as well be Dueling Grounds. Unfortunately, the one creature they're swinging with is likely an 8/1 flier with Cranial Plating.
I've been playing this online recently, but I didn't know this thread existed. That's a nice surprise. I posted in a thread over at the Source, but their modern community is so small.
I've tried a few variants, including one with counters, the aggro one, and the one I've settled on now, and I've learned something about Ideal... KISS: keep it simple, stupid.
The first thing this deck needs to do is solidify the enchantments it needs. You only needForm of the Dragon, Dovescape, and Night of Souls' Betrayal/Curse of Death's Hold/Raking Canopy. Every enchantment added after that hurts your chances of comboing. Although, that doesn't mean you can't use a couple slots for utility. But, I mean only a couple. Space is tight here and narrow enchantments aren't gonna cut it.
As a long time dredge player, I'm all about trimming fat and have a very "no nonsense" approach to deck building. That's why I'd suggest as small an enchantment package as possible, at least eight dig spells, twelve mana ramp and eight protection spells. When we add all this up, it looks like we're not gonna have room once we throw lands in there, but we'll make it fit.
The best draw spell I've used is Peer Through Depths. No questions about it. Not even a second thought. PTD is the real deal here - it's Impulse on cocaine. So yeah, always four of those. The second best spell I've tried is See Beyond. Two cards for two mana is definitely fine, but the fact we shuffle a card from our hand is gravy. You can't help drawing the enchantments sometimes. I even tried Crystal Ball for a couple days to see if it could be a replacement for Sensei's Divining Top, and the answer in short, no it can't. This deck's critical turn is the fourth, and I can't activate Ball until then. It's a turn too late.
Now, protection spells. I use a completely different protection package than any here. I use a combination of Silence, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Duress. The discard answers everything your opponent may have. It is proactive, giving you access to their hand and giving you vital information for your combo turn. Counterspells are really the biggest threat to this deck. Creatures that hate out enchantments aren't that popular. That's why Silence is such a money card; they have to counter it. Additionally, if the opponent is non-blue, Silence shuts off their turn two or three plays. Halting their progress like that is fantastic when we're aiming to go off turn four.
I have a question for those using counterspells: Why? And how? I don't see how a combo deck exists without test spells to bait your opponent. You aren't likely to get clocked by anyone besides Affinity before turn four. Then, they still have to beat you two out of three. I don't see them doing that twice very often. I digress, though. Counterspells don't help your critical turn, unless you got lucky with double or triple Lotus. I mean, just explain it to me.
Here's what I've settled on for now. I'm a big fan of Silence like I said before. The bounce lands make a lot of sense if you want a low land count, but need a critical mass of mana one turn. They also work well with Mine to reset its counters.
I've tried Meishin, but I didn't like it because I exhaust my hand a lot of the times trying to resolve Ideal. The only time Meishin would be relevant is if your opponent has a 5+ power flier. Otherwise, you can get Form or O. Ring.
I think this deck is powerful and under the radar enough to win a tournament. One card combos are insane. I mean, there was a reason Survival was banned last year.
The reason counters are useful is because the control deck will get to play fairly even games against other control decks that lack the same pressure of aggro. Eventually you get the advantage one way or the other and drop ideal. Where as they won't be able to win off of one strong turn. (delver is an issue though due to it having plenty of pressure). And against aggro you won't need to worry about them countering your ideal, so you can just race to ideal while disrupting them here and there. Ik it sounds like a scramble against aggro, (and it is some times) but the only difference between ur lists speed and mine are the lotus blooms. Which have pros and cons. I can still get a turn 3-5 ideal w/o much fuss. But it is a tad slower nonetheless. Which makes affinity a weaker match. Also you won't need to worry about getting black mana ( although I love the discard, control has no t1 play outside sleight of hand ).
But your list certainly does have alot going for it. I can certainly see it having a major advantage against aggro over control. (although I don't understand your dislike of Mieshin unless you really do drop to 0 cards in-hand when u drop ideal).
The reason counters are useful is because the control deck will get to play fairly even games against other control decks that lack the same pressure of aggro. Eventually you get the advantage one way or the other and drop ideal.Where as they won't be able to win off of one strong turn. (delver is an issue though due to it having plenty of pressure).
Why do you want parity with the control decks? Where is the advantage in that? You counter their Expedition Map, great, then they counter your Ideal and you lose. We're not resilient enough to consider ourselves a control deck. If Ideal goes down, we go down. That's combo, all the way. I'm not sure what your second sentence means; it's very broad. And that final sentence you say actually goes against your stance on counters. If they can't win in one turn, why do we need to counter anything? We only need to stop their cards that stop us. That's why targeted discard is really good.
And against aggro you won't need to worry about them countering your ideal, so you can just race to ideal while disrupting them here and there. Ik it sounds like a scramble against aggro, (and it is some times) but the only difference between ur lists speed and mine are the lotus blooms. Which have pros and cons. I can still get a turn 3-5 ideal w/o much fuss. But it is a tad slower nonetheless. Which makes affinity a weaker match. Also you won't need to worry about getting black mana ( although I love the discard, control has no t1 play outside sleight of hand ).
Yeah, aggro isn't a big problem for us though. Affinity is the exception, but Zoo honestly isn't bad. In either case, discard and Silence or counters, we slow them down enough to win most of the time. This is a good pairing for us.
But your list certainly does have alot going for it. I can certainly see it having a major advantage against aggro over control. (although I don't understand your dislike of Mieshin unless you really do drop to 0 cards in-hand when u drop ideal).
Thank you. I am happy with it thus far. Meishin is just too random for my liking. He's good after a couple turns of Epic, no doubt, but if you expect to always have cards in your hand right away then you're going to be disappointed. If they have multiple fliers with 5+ power, then I'll be sorry, but what are the odds of that?
im saying counters make it easier to get a one-turn opening against control.
i dare say zoo isn't much of a problem to anyone =P
what im saying about meishin is, unless you have 0 cards in hand, it'll at least match the -1/-1 enchantments as soon as it hits the board. (unless you're trying to kill utility creatures of course) and since we normally drop dovescape first you'll be garunteed that one card in hand most of the time. and even when you need to nerf their creatures and you are at 0 in hand you can just grab FotD alot of the time. why not just run 1 meishin and 1 night of souls betrayal?
but in any case, the more i think about it the more i feel you're list may be the swiss army knife control tries to be. and although ill maintain control has its advantages, your list seems like the better
edit:
i've been trying your deck and i'm loving it, but i just made it 4 inquisitions instead of the split, the target turn is 4 anyway.
I played a good three hour session with this tonight and I've some things to report. First, aggro is worse than I initially thought it was. Most of the times, when I lost to aggro, it was only by one turn. But one turn is all that matters. I think we need Path to Exile and/or Pyroclasm in the board. I am using Pyroclasm since aggro decks should over extend to race us since we're combo.
Second, the deck needs maindeck answers to planeswalkers and big fliers. Oblivion Ring has been a great target to search up to take out a problematic creature or kill a walker like Tezz in affinity, Elspeth in UW, etc. I want to find space for more because they aren't bad topdecks and are good in multiples too.
So, basically the Leylines are good when your opponent plays burn or Lavamancer since you might not have time to get Dovescape before Form. Also, discard and random planeswalker abilities and such get shut off.
Boseiju is obviously against control. It's awesome if they don't use Tectonic Edge. You don't even have to use any ritual effects if you aren't under pressure. 7 mana sorcery is good enough when it can't be countered.
Auramancy is for random crap like Pridemage. For one slot, it's worth it.
Firespout for affinity and zoo. Same goes for Path to Exile.
Needle is good against Tron. It shuts off Eye of Ugin and Expedition Map. That limits their ability to draw tron and their win conditions, the only thing that can race us It's also going to have random uses, it's a very versatile card.
I'm not a fan of removal you have to wait a turn to get any mileage from. I think any of these are better, with O Ring taking the most versatile award home.
I used prison term before ring because of its ability to switch creatures. I thought that was extremely relevant since I could use it early, buy time, and then switch it to their flier if they ever play one. That planned worked very well too. What I didn't anticipate were planeswalkers owning me, and that happened. A couple rings stop those shenanigans well enough.
You could also try Faith's Fetters. O-Ring is straight up better, but the life gain from Fetters is something to consider.
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I've been playing a version of enduring ideal with phyrexian unlife in the main and it does seem to help in the aggro/burn matchups. There have been several times where I was up against a B/R aggro deck and was close to 0 life at the time I cast ideal. In that situation, unlife is nice since it gives you a life buffer and then on the following turn you can cast dovescape or form of the dragon or whatever. It's also pretty easy to hard cast. There have been a few game ones where I would cast unlife and my opponent remands it or uses some sort of enchantment hate against it thinking that it is a key piece to the deck.
Unfortuneately, my paper magic collection was sold off after my daughter was born (no time for face to face play), but I play on MTGO quite a bit and have been tinkering with the enduring ideal deck. I'm a sucker for under appreciated archetypes.
Modern:
WUBRG Tribal Zoo WUBRG
Legacy:
UG Post UG
Commander:
RUG Maelstrom Wanderer (competitive) RUG
WUBRG Progenitus 67-land control WUBRG
WUBRG Horde of Notions (competitive French) WUBRG
It really depends on the situation and match-up. Here are some examples.
You are getting hit for lethal next turn by Jund; here is the order:
Actually, you can probably swap 1 and 3 and you're still safe.
You are getting hit for lethal next turn by RDW; here is the order:
Against UR Storm, probably search in the same order as RDW.
You are getting hit for lethal next turn by W/x Tokens; here is the order:
I guess after this, we can probably conclude that if you're going to die to creatures, get out Meishin first, and if you're going to die to non-creature spells, get out Dovescape first.
almost nothing (IMO)
what i've been having trouble with is affinity and delver. what strong answers we got against those? and aura of silence just doesn't come down early enough, is there a Kataki, War's Wage in enchantment form?
Only one in modern is Silent Arbiter. But alas; it is not exactly friendly with our enchantment only shenanigans.
Dear kbx41,
You have received a warning at MTG Salvation Forums.
Reason:
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Saying that you sometimes wish people (in this case the implication is the staff) would fall down a well and get AIDS is hardly appropriate for the forum.
I have 28 different EDH decks
and as far as affinity goes, i tried just flat-out running 4 kataki, war's wage. works pretty damn well. takes up alot of SB space though
I've tried a few variants, including one with counters, the aggro one, and the one I've settled on now, and I've learned something about Ideal... KISS: keep it simple, stupid.
The first thing this deck needs to do is solidify the enchantments it needs. You only need Form of the Dragon, Dovescape, and Night of Souls' Betrayal/Curse of Death's Hold/Raking Canopy. Every enchantment added after that hurts your chances of comboing. Although, that doesn't mean you can't use a couple slots for utility. But, I mean only a couple. Space is tight here and narrow enchantments aren't gonna cut it.
As a long time dredge player, I'm all about trimming fat and have a very "no nonsense" approach to deck building. That's why I'd suggest as small an enchantment package as possible, at least eight dig spells, twelve mana ramp and eight protection spells. When we add all this up, it looks like we're not gonna have room once we throw lands in there, but we'll make it fit.
The best draw spell I've used is Peer Through Depths. No questions about it. Not even a second thought. PTD is the real deal here - it's Impulse on cocaine. So yeah, always four of those. The second best spell I've tried is See Beyond. Two cards for two mana is definitely fine, but the fact we shuffle a card from our hand is gravy. You can't help drawing the enchantments sometimes. I even tried Crystal Ball for a couple days to see if it could be a replacement for Sensei's Divining Top, and the answer in short, no it can't. This deck's critical turn is the fourth, and I can't activate Ball until then. It's a turn too late.
When it comes to mana ramp, I think this is the only homogenized category. Lotus Bloom, Pentad Prism, Seething Song. Okay, let's move on.
Now, protection spells. I use a completely different protection package than any here. I use a combination of Silence, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Duress. The discard answers everything your opponent may have. It is proactive, giving you access to their hand and giving you vital information for your combo turn. Counterspells are really the biggest threat to this deck. Creatures that hate out enchantments aren't that popular. That's why Silence is such a money card; they have to counter it. Additionally, if the opponent is non-blue, Silence shuts off their turn two or three plays. Halting their progress like that is fantastic when we're aiming to go off turn four.
I have a question for those using counterspells: Why? And how? I don't see how a combo deck exists without test spells to bait your opponent. You aren't likely to get clocked by anyone besides Affinity before turn four. Then, they still have to beat you two out of three. I don't see them doing that twice very often. I digress, though. Counterspells don't help your critical turn, unless you got lucky with double or triple Lotus. I mean, just explain it to me.
Here's what I've settled on for now. I'm a big fan of Silence like I said before. The bounce lands make a lot of sense if you want a low land count, but need a critical mass of mana one turn. They also work well with Mine to reset its counters.
I've tried Meishin, but I didn't like it because I exhaust my hand a lot of the times trying to resolve Ideal. The only time Meishin would be relevant is if your opponent has a 5+ power flier. Otherwise, you can get Form or O. Ring.
I think this deck is powerful and under the radar enough to win a tournament. One card combos are insane. I mean, there was a reason Survival was banned last year.
But your list certainly does have alot going for it. I can certainly see it having a major advantage against aggro over control. (although I don't understand your dislike of Mieshin unless you really do drop to 0 cards in-hand when u drop ideal).
Why do you want parity with the control decks? Where is the advantage in that? You counter their Expedition Map, great, then they counter your Ideal and you lose. We're not resilient enough to consider ourselves a control deck. If Ideal goes down, we go down. That's combo, all the way. I'm not sure what your second sentence means; it's very broad. And that final sentence you say actually goes against your stance on counters. If they can't win in one turn, why do we need to counter anything? We only need to stop their cards that stop us. That's why targeted discard is really good.
Yeah, aggro isn't a big problem for us though. Affinity is the exception, but Zoo honestly isn't bad. In either case, discard and Silence or counters, we slow them down enough to win most of the time. This is a good pairing for us.
Thank you. I am happy with it thus far. Meishin is just too random for my liking. He's good after a couple turns of Epic, no doubt, but if you expect to always have cards in your hand right away then you're going to be disappointed. If they have multiple fliers with 5+ power, then I'll be sorry, but what are the odds of that?
i dare say zoo isn't much of a problem to anyone =P
what im saying about meishin is, unless you have 0 cards in hand, it'll at least match the -1/-1 enchantments as soon as it hits the board. (unless you're trying to kill utility creatures of course) and since we normally drop dovescape first you'll be garunteed that one card in hand most of the time. and even when you need to nerf their creatures and you are at 0 in hand you can just grab FotD alot of the time. why not just run 1 meishin and 1 night of souls betrayal?
but in any case, the more i think about it the more i feel you're list may be the swiss army knife control tries to be. and although ill maintain control has its advantages, your list seems like the better
edit:
i've been trying your deck and i'm loving it, but i just made it 4 inquisitions instead of the split, the target turn is 4 anyway.
Second, the deck needs maindeck answers to planeswalkers and big fliers. Oblivion Ring has been a great target to search up to take out a problematic creature or kill a walker like Tezz in affinity, Elspeth in UW, etc. I want to find space for more because they aren't bad topdecks and are good in multiples too.
My board looks like this, at the moment;
So, basically the Leylines are good when your opponent plays burn or Lavamancer since you might not have time to get Dovescape before Form. Also, discard and random planeswalker abilities and such get shut off.
Boseiju is obviously against control. It's awesome if they don't use Tectonic Edge. You don't even have to use any ritual effects if you aren't under pressure. 7 mana sorcery is good enough when it can't be countered.
Auramancy is for random crap like Pridemage. For one slot, it's worth it.
Firespout for affinity and zoo. Same goes for Path to Exile.
Needle is good against Tron. It shuts off Eye of Ugin and Expedition Map. That limits their ability to draw tron and their win conditions, the only thing that can race us It's also going to have random uses, it's a very versatile card.
If other people test, post what you discover.
I used prison term before ring because of its ability to switch creatures. I thought that was extremely relevant since I could use it early, buy time, and then switch it to their flier if they ever play one. That planned worked very well too. What I didn't anticipate were planeswalkers owning me, and that happened. A couple rings stop those shenanigans well enough.
On Mythic Rares: "What's next, Wizards will print six golden Black Lotuses and randomly place them in boosters, and if someone gets one, they get to tour the Wizards facility?"
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