Can there be a viable turbo fog deck that wins through Maze's End? Play a bant core with perhaps Rites of Flourishing as draw engines. Could almost be a Titan bloom core with Amulet of Vigor alongside fogs.
Can there be a viable turbo fog deck that wins through Maze's End? Play a bant core with perhaps Rites of Flourishing as draw engines. Could almost be a Titan bloom core with Amulet of Vigor alongside fogs.
No.
Maze's End is a land that comes into play tapped, that requires you to assemble 10 other unique lands that also come into play tapped to win the game.
Let's look at the best case scenario for it:
T1: Gate 1
T2: Gate 2
T3: Gate 3
T4: Rites of Flourishing, Maze's End
T5: Gate 4, Gate 5, return Maze's End look for Gate 6
T6: Gate 7, Maze's End, another Rite (only now do you have enough mana to play your 1st fog)
T7: Gate 8, Gate 9, search Gate 10 with Maze, win.
In your first 10 cards (on play) or 11 (on draw) you need 3 different gates (one of which must have green), Rites and Maze.
In your first 16 cards (on play) or 17 (on draw) you need 8 different gates for this magical Christmasland scenario.
Your wincon is totally noninteractive (except for land destruction coughTronisathinginModern or your Rites dying) which is a plus, but you have no mana to interact with anything your opponent does till T6, by which time you're usually dead in Modern.
Sure you can slow-roll the process which gives you enough time to assemble the necessary Gates, but my traditional Fog deck with no card based wincons and no mill spells can make the opponent draw enough to deck himself by T12-14.
You could replace every land in the traditional Fog deck with Gates, but the CIPT hurts you cos ideally every turn you want enough mana to both Fog (many good fogs i.e. those that save you from burn in addition to creatures cost 3 mana) and play a Howling Mine effect. Plus, once you get your Maze End (which may be on T1, T4 or T7) you can only search out 1 Gate per turn.
You could also try to make it more consistent with Ancient Stirrings, Expedition Map whatnot, but every one of these cards you play is one Fog or Mine less and since Turbofog needs a certain density of Fog and Mine effects to work there aren't that many flex spots to work with.
TL:DR - Maze's End is a flavourful card and unique wincon, but it is too clunky to use unless you extensively build around it and with the amount of support it needs, definitely not in a Fog shell.
maze end takes too much to set up and without amulet, all your lands come into play tapped. Man lands are amazing but I worry if you only run them as 1-ofs, you wont see them enough or they will sit on paths or bolts or something since we are creatureless. Story circle and swan song may be our best answers to eidolon. Havent tried either bc I just run a ton of life gain. burn has a real hard time killing us g1 when we t0 a leyline. like ive said before, ive been playing turbofog for the better part of 9 yrs now and its my pet deck. Tutelage has been our best win con to date. Its cheap, p[lays with our deck the best due to us having a natural mill strategy and we naturally draw a ton of cards for multiple activations. Mikokoro may not be bad since its much hard to interact with. Seige is also nice bc its what you want it to be when you play it. Take it from me bc ive tried retty much every build, playstyle and win con for this deck in all kinds of color combos. I even went naya and American. ive tried it all from elocturs, ascension, reactor, tutelage, megrim/lilianas caress, creature beat down, mill, maze's end, different chandras gideons, jace's, you name it. Tutelage has been the best in my book so far. If you guys have any questions on anything, id love to share anything I know about the deck and love chatting about everyons ideas. btw... forbidden orchard might be nice to fix mana if you want to win by turn 10 but in my builds, I tend to get 1 game in in 45 mins so I see no need for it bc between fetches and all the turns I have plus drawing a ton, mana is always available and in the right colors. I rly love my current mana base bc I always have the colors I need when I need them. One other thing... I read about maindeck RiP for emmy.... it wont matter at that point either. Weve alrdy taken 15 and lost all our permanents... emrakul is one of those cards that we need to just hope to avoid bc RiP only helps if we happen to mill emmy. Also, if emmy is that big of an issue, theres nevermore and cards of the such. maybe even runed halo
Hi there. Ok, let's see, I'm sorry I haven't explained the reasons behind card choices.
So we both agree about mikokoro, center of the sea. Cool card draw engine, which also taps for mana and is resilient to artifact hate or creature hate.
1) We don’t play creatures so my first fright is that the moment we animate our manlands, our opponents will have removal waiting in their hands doing nothing but take up space. So we are unable to attack/block and we will lose one of our lands. The moment we have a Leyline of Sanctity out the Lightning Bolts will sit and eat our Tarpits.
2) Now what if our opponent has a creature dense deck that just turns everything sideways? They played some fetches, some shockers, etc. and lost some life. When we would use multiple copies of Batwing Brume we could really punish them when attacking with 6-7 creatures (I once did 14 dmg against an Elf deck). Against those decks our manlands could give the final blow, but again, we have to watch out for unused removal.
1) I was thinking if it's a possibity to first check out which deck our opponent is playing and then decide whether to animate our lands or not. I.e. We could play only 1 copy each of celestial colonnade/creeping tar pit and keep them just as a slow mana source until we figure out how much creature removal our opponent plays, or until late game, when we would be able to risk a land for damage as we would have many. After all, we'll always have elixir of immortality to reshuffle them. Again, it's just a backup plan, not the main wincon so we can use them just as lands.
2) Exactly, if my memory doesn't betray me, I once beat a BW tokens deck (which had LOTS of tokens on the battlefield late game) thanks to batwing brume and an angel token generated by luminarch ascension as a finisher (I'm not really sure if i still want to play this card).
3)Playing Jace you could say the same thing. Sure we can protect him from combat damage, but will he be a shooting duck against any other kind of removal which essentially gives our deck a useless slot.
You could be right about this one, all the burn will hit Jace ONCE we have leyline of sanctity out. Still, the non-burn removal is mostly the same for planeswalkers/artifacts/enchantments (abrupt decay/maelstrom pulse/kolaghan's command). I could use the same argument for howling mine for instance, since lots of decks play mainboard artifact hate due to affinity being extensively played.
4) Looking at the current tier-decks I have a hard time convincing myself manlands or Planeswalkers will work. So that, or am I to worried about removal? We do have Swan Song and Remand to counter but do we need those to counter other threats that really can screw us over?
The main reason I would play counterspells is other counterspells/removal/burn, because no one likes to lose that fog that could have saved you from lethal damage. That being said, I don't think remand could be that useful here except for the card draw, because we're not playing tempo here nor seeking card advantage, and because there are cheaper counterspells for that. Even mana leak should be more useful in the early game or when the opponent is tapped out. I'd play some hard counters instead such as swan song or dispel.
However, I don't know if it's better to use counterspells or just over-fog our opponent.
Quote from sicsempertyrannis »
Also what do you guys think about the red circle of protection/ story circle for thje sb?
Can you give us an example when you would board that card in? Would you play that instead of one of the fog effects?
Burn, one of our worst matchups. Eidolon of the great revel totally pwns us. Yup, I'd play that in the place of some fogs.
Is there enough dredge, Tron (mill away Emrakul), Snapcaster, delve, Kolaghan’s Command etc. being played to enable us to play Rest in Peace mainboard. Look, we don’t make use of our GY, so why would we let our opponents be able to? I’ve got an inkling that when I go to an event I will make use of that R.I.P. How do you guys see the current meta, and would a R.I.P. fit in that meta?
You're right, we don't make use of our graveyard, but i don't think we want our fogs in the exile zone as we want to recur them (or reshuffle them) with elixir of immortality. We need the fogs to keep coming as we can't really tell when we're going to win (screw that turn 4 format thing, you know..)
I've played Tylerstegman's decklist yesterday with few modifications (sorry dude, I really like your deckbuilding) celestial colonnade/creeping tar pit+ Jace Beleren, replacing 2 shocklands + temple bell, against a GBW creature based deck which extensively used landfall triggers, he casted half his deck as any mono green ramp would do, fogged him, then casted sphinx's tutelage and won after 3/4 turns as he had almost no lands in his deck, and most cards shared G. Easy win, but no top tier stuff. I'm starting to like sphinx's tutelage, guess I overlooked it.
Then I won against an UG infect deck, as he couldn't kill me in turn 2, (he hit me for 7 poison) naturally milling him with the draw engines, fogging almost every turn, sweeping his dudes with supreme verdict as i run out of fogs and then using jace's ultimate to seal the deal. That could be something, but the other guy logged out before g2 so I couldn't bring in the sb for testing.
All in all, 2 creature based decks that had no answers (at least mainboard) to fog/artifacts.
Forgot to include monastery siege though, gonna include it ASAP
BTW, what do you think about forbidden orchard as a manabase fixer? Do you think it is worth to give the opponent a 1/1 dude for 1 mana of any color?
Cheers.
SST.
BTW... quote me if im wrong, bu if we have leyline out against burn, they cant touch our planeswalkers bc last I heard, they have to target you and redirect it to the planeswalker but if they cant target us at all, then they cant redirect to the planeswalker. that was my understanding on how players and planeswalkers work. could have been changed and I didn't hear about it but if my memory serves me right, oncve we lay down leyline, they cant target our planeswalker unless the card specifically says destroy target creature or planeswalker because of how a burn spells needs to target us first to be redirected.
So..
-How many copies of monastery siege would you play on your build and replacing what?
-G1 vs Tron is an auto-loss as we can't mill'em and we have no mainboard answers to emrakul, the aeons torn for instance?
-Doesn't runed halo stop the damage but not the annihilator from eldrazis?
BTW, manlands is something I still defend as it's just a backup plan in case they have mainboard answers to mill, at the (IMHO) low cost of nerfing down a couple lands, you have a potential wincon which can save the day, or at least g1. There's no need to animate them if your opponent has some mana opened and you know he's playing creature removal, or even if he has a strong blocker with reach. But I'll stick only to 2 celestial colonnades (instead of creeping tar pit)as they're resilient to lightning bolt.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for putting some light on the burn/planeswalkers stuff, some judge once told me at a FNM that burn is able to hit your planeswalkers even if you have leyline of sanctity out. So since then I was playing that way :/ . But not anymore...
So more reasons to play at least a singleton jace beleren instead of a temple bell.
Oh, and yesterday I've played some long and boring game vs lantern control (a.k.a. fateseal control), but I think the guy was new to the deck or sth because he took plenty of time to play his turns. It was pretty easy to beat him as I hosed him with a turn 0 leyline of sanctity and he scooped after a while, as most (if not all) of his wincons (namely pyrite spellbomb/Ghirapur Æther Grid and the millstones) target, and the millstones can be countered with elixir of immortality.
So, basically I didn't cast any fogs, his topdeck control stuff was useless as I was drawing more cards than what he was able to mill, and he scooped after
I resolved the 2nd elixir. He didn't play g2.
So there it goes the useless matchup of the day.
Oh, and I'll ask it again, do you guys know if there's any way to kick/replace the Original Poster due to inactivity or such, so we can update all the info (card choices, matchups, decklists, videos, strategies, etc) in the first page?
So..
-How many copies of monastery siege would you play on your build and replacing what?
-G1 vs Tron is an auto-loss as we can't mill'em and we have no mainboard answers to emrakul, the aeons torn for instance?
-Doesn't runed halo stop the damage but not the annihilator from eldrazis?
BTW, manlands is something I still defend as it's just a backup plan in case they have mainboard answers to mill, at the (IMHO) low cost of nerfing down a couple lands, you have a potential wincon which can save the day, or at least g1. There's no need to animate them if your opponent has some mana opened and you know he's playing creature removal, or even if he has a strong blocker with reach. But I'll stick only to 2 celestial colonnades (instead of creeping tar pit)as they're resilient to lightning bolt.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for putting some light on the burn/planeswalkers stuff, some judge once told me at a FNM that burn is able to hit your planeswalkers even if you have leyline of sanctity out. So since then I was playing that way :/ . But not anymore...
So more reasons to play at least a singleton jace beleren instead of a temple bell.
Oh, and yesterday I've played some long and boring game vs lantern control (a.k.a. fateseal control), but I think the guy was new to the deck or sth because he took plenty of time to play his turns. It was pretty easy to beat him as I hosed him with a turn 0 leyline of sanctity and he scooped after a while, as most (if not all) of his wincons (namely pyrite spellbomb/Ghirapur Æther Grid and the millstones) target, and the millstones can be countered with elixir of immortality.
So, basically I didn't cast any fogs, his topdeck control stuff was useless as I was drawing more cards than what he was able to mill, and he scooped after
I resolved the 2nd elixir. He didn't play g2.
So there it goes the useless matchup of the day.
Oh, and I'll ask it again, do you guys know if there's any way to kick/replace the Original Poster due to inactivity or such, so we can update all the info (card choices, matchups, decklists, videos, strategies, etc) in the first page?
Cheers.
SST.
As far as seige goes, I personally won't run it over anything unless burn takes a rise again. It isn't better than TB in my book bc you can activate bell at instant speed so they cant use the card they draw and force them to discard. You can also use it when u play tutelage and mill away anything they may have scry'd or put on top. Now if I was playing dictate and bell didn't exist, I'd put seize in over dictate bc of your choice to hose decks or draw out ways flash in my opinion and it's easier on the mana at 2u vs 1uu. And I'm not saying it's wrong or a bad idea for manlands, but as a burn player, I believe in VCA so I run very few to no creatures to give them more dead draws. Halo stops the dmg from Emmy but not the annihilator since annihilator doesn't target. It sucks but I find it easier to come back if that's all they have on the board to swing with then taking 15 and losing permanents. If I only lose the permanents, or I feel they are running emmy, I just play my hand smart enough to recover after annihilator. And by all means, if someone knows how to do the primer, go ahead and revamp the entire thing or even create a new primer thread and link this thread to the new one.
Right now I believe that the best colors for the list is U/W/x. I've been a big fan of Esper fog so far. If they print one more fog effect for 1 mana in white or blue, I'll probably cut black. I love tutelage as well. Dark deal is pretty sick. Forgot about that one but I think if you wanna go cheap and streamline without paying for fetches and shocks/duals, I'd say go u/w. It has all the answers for the meta and best win cons for us along with best fogs. Green has been pretty unimpressive for us.
I'd go back a few pgs in the thread and check out the lists. I'll try to link one but I'm at work for 12 hrs so it'll be a bit. If you don't want to use leyline, there's also witchbane orb ,ivory mask , aegis of the gods , imperial mask , orbs of warding , spirit of the hearth , and True believer . Those are all the cards that grant us hexproof. Against burn, your best bet game 1 is to stick one of the above or leyline early and hope to hit elixirs to gain enough life until we mill them before eidolon kills us (or you beat them down with Gideon or whatever depending on how you run your list). Game 2, it's all sb tech. That's all up to you. I run lots of lifegain. There's other ways about a pg or 2 back that we've discussed on burn. Some may run dragons claw or kor firewalker or something similar. Basically it's a rly hard mu. G1 is kinda rough bc even leyline doesn't win it anymore. If they stick eidolons, we fog and still lose life. I have 2 o-rings 1 d sphere plus 4 rest for the weary and 1 extra elixir of immortality to come in against burn. Sometimes I have to just play smart and hold in games 2/3 the extra leyline bc once they hit their sb card for it, they will start slinging bolts. I feel that the mu has gotten a lot easier with tutelage but it's still rough. Just have to play smart and think it out. I'll add the link and more info I've got on burn later. Gotta clock in here soon.
Hi, been playstesting a modern mono white prison/enduring ideal deck lately (which I really enjoyed and got me a fair, unexpected amount of wins), because I was a tad tired of losing against the same decks always; tron, tooth and nail and now I'm adding Time walk (and after a lot of playtesting, never played against burn, believe it or not). So let's see.
As far as seige goes, I personally won't run it over anything unless burn takes a rise again. It isn't better than TB in my book bc you can activate bell at instant speed so they cant use the card they draw and force them to discard. You can also use it when u play tutelage and mill away anything they may have scry'd or put on top. Now if I was playing dictate and bell didn't exist, I'd put seize in over dictate bc of your choice to hose decks or draw out ways flash in my opinion and it's easier on the mana at 2u vs 1uu
Yup, you're right, I guess I overlooked temple bell, monastery siege could be sb tech though, you know, to delay removal and burn, and stuff.
Halo stops the dmg from Emmy but not the annihilator since annihilator doesn't target. It sucks but I find it easier to come back if that's all they have on the board to swing with then taking 15 and losing permanents. If I only lose the permanents, or I feel they are running emmy, I just play my hand smart enough to recover after annihilator.
Mhh, I'm not seeing your point here, yes, you prevent the damage, but how do you cast a supreme verdict (only card you have mainboard that could beat emrakul, the aeons torn) once the annihilator made you sac all your lands/mines and you're drawing only 1 card per turn? We don't really play enough permanents to "feed it", so it's just a matter of 1/2 turns to get rid of all our board (including runed halo) and a couple more turns until we run out of fogs/lands.
So, IMO (thinking of your build Tyler here, but possibly applies to most builds) unless we play some mainboard answers to tron/tooth & nail or any deck that plays eldrazis it's always g1 lost for us.
While playing the enduring ideal stuff, some cards that I've found useful for that are nevermore (aim to the oblivion stones also, losing all mines, bells and stuff sucks), prison term, (believe it or not, cast it on any of his dudes ASAP, then switch it to eldrazis) and chained to the rocks (kinda hard to splash red here though)
And I also found out that phyrexian unlife is better than I expected, basically as a lifegain enchantment, which can make 10 life or even more for 3cmc as the infect thing starts triggering ONCE you’re under 0. I.E. If you’re at 3, and your opponent swings for 8, you’ll be now at -5 with no poison counters, so technically in this case, is the same than gaining 15 life. The downside is that if they get rid of it and you’re at 0 or less, you lose. Ghost quarter may help to stop the tron for a while too.
But anyway, and after sideboarding against it, unless we have PLENTY of answers, it’s still a terrible matchup g2/3. Yes, we can fog their wurmcoil engines all day, and nevermore their Emrakul, the aeons torn , even stop their planeswalkers with pithing needle , which is kinda unlikely to happen in just one match, but still, after that, they can resolve an oblivion stone and reset all our cards, or even a nature’s claim . And I’m not mentioning Emrakul totally shuts down the mill wincon (we can play tormod’s crypt or rest in peace for that).
Maybe I’m being a bit negative, maybe there’s some misinformation on how to play against them of my part, but I truly found no answers after a couple matchs vs those decks.
Still, I’m not saying they’re unwinnable, just really, really hard to beat.
What I feel right now, is that sometimes foggin’ n’ mining’ is just not enough, and as it’s been said before, we’re letting our opponent to dig his entire deck for a solution. Maybe we need to be more versatile, maybe we need the turbofog strategy as a shell for some other strategy, such as the time warp/takin’ turns combo (which I think is really compatible with our strategy and even won a couple events recently), or some other combo stuff (maybe that duskmantle guildmage + mindcrank can work here).
So summing up a bit, IMO what this deck need is.
-Some more spot removal/answers mainboard.
-A Way to win on the spot, or some other wincon than “natural mill”
-Versatility
-A new thread to update the primer every now and then.
Just my 2 cents. Sorry for not answering soon, I also want this to have some more discussion, but can’t find the time at times :P, so whenever I can I just write my thoughts somewhere and the upload the whole thing.
BTW, lantern control just won GP Oklahoma, but it’s still as boring as watching the grass grow.
Oh, and don't overlook prison term, give a try someday. It's better than it looks against eldrazis (maybe I'm being a bit narrow though).
What I mean is they hit us for 15, we lose all our perms and there aren't very many (even ton lists) that I've seen running emmy. I've seen like 2 r/g lists running emmy, they destroy everything and in response to annihilate on the stack we fog. Even the lists running it, run 1. So we fog in response til the deck out. I haven't had a problem against it outside of the first swing if I don't have a fog. By the time they cast it, most of their deck should have hit the gy that we get away with it. But I do see your point. Also, once you've set up a way to temporarily slow down tron, that should be all u need to win. I've only had problems if they land karn. I was running counters in the sb but I've since dropped them but they would help against o-stone and karn. Like I said... I haven't rly run into issues with emmy though so my lack of preperation will probably due me in eventually
Not yet. May have potential. I've been running Gideon CoJ for that kind of effect. Yes he's 4 to play but harder to deal with and he has the ability to reset the bored if needed. Plus he's indestructible and can grow pretty fast against some mus
The only thing I realized is that with tutelage and any win con with cmc 3 or less, we open ourselves up to a heavily play a. Decay in any b/g/x deck. I'd how popular Jund has gotten but abzan is up there too and I'm sure they both pack the full 4. But I'm still on the tutelage plan. May add black leyline and any other card similar that affects only the opponent
This is kind of random but I am thinking of trying out American turbofog running Koth of the hammer as the wind con because the ability to start tapping mountains for damage is pretty ridiculous and can end a game pretty quick. The only downfall is that I have to run a 3 mana pseudo fog in intimidation bolt
What I mean is they hit us for 15, we lose all our perms and there aren't very many (even ton lists) that I've seen running emmy. I've seen like 2 r/g lists running emmy, they destroy everything and in response to annihilate on the stack we fog. Even the lists running it, run 1. So we fog in response til the deck out. I haven't had a problem against it outside of the first swing if I don't have a fog. By the time they cast it, most of their deck should have hit the gy that we get away with it. But I do see your point. Also, once you've set up a way to temporarily slow down tron, that should be all u need to win. I've only had problems if they land karn. I was running counters in the sb but I've since dropped them but they would help against o-stone and karn. Like I said... I haven't rly run into issues with emmy though so my lack of preperation will probably due me in eventually
Every single Tron deck runs Emmy, no matter if we prevent the damage, they still get rid of our mines and lands with the annihilator so unless we get to keep 4 lands and a supreme verdict in hand after the annihilator, we need to draw 2 cards per turn to keep ourselves alive, one land and one fog at least. As we're drawing only one card due to our lack of permanents, we're screwed. And still, if we get rid of him with a verdict, we can't mill 'em due to emmy.
The answers? prison term or nevermore if we want to prevent him from getting into the battlefield/attacking. Oblivion ring or journey to nowhere if some lands survive the annihilator. And finally surgical extraction, leyline of the void, tormod's crypt, relic of progenitus, etc if we're going for the mill wincon (not necessary if we exile him actually).
IMO the best card for spot removing Emrakul, the aeons torn is coming on Battle for Zendlikar, and that would be Stasis Snare, as it basically an instant which can target emrakul.
BTW, if we're not playing manlands in order to blank our opponent's removal, then we shouldn't play myth realized for the same reason.
As for splashing red instead of black, think we'll lose consistency mainly on the firsts turns due to losing darkness, as well as losing batwing brumes damage. And depending on how much red you're splashing, it sounds a bit slow. I'd play some graveyard shuffling eldrazi instead.
Or even add runeflare trap/cerebral vortex/ebony owl netsuke, due to the amount of card drawing.
Other alt-wincons I thought about are booby trap, baneful omen, staff of nin or sphinx-bone wand, but again, they seem kinda slow/expensive/janky, the latter 2 being slighty better than the first ones IMO as the staff provides some card drawing and the wand can get charged kinda fast(If i had to pay 3 BlaCk I'd be playing underworld dreams for sure).
Not the tron decks here. Not g/r, mono u, u/w, nor mono black (which looks super fun to play) but ur right. If I ever played against it id be screwed and I think that stasis snare is the best answer. And I've tried the owling rune flare version and didn't care for it. Probably would have to kp black. I like my current version but just need to get the sb tweaked bc my meta changes every so often and depends which store I go to. I think I will Def replace o-rings and d-sphere for snare in my sb.
Thinking about that... Idk if I would trade them out bc o-ring and d-sphere hit karn and o-stone while the other hits emmy and wurmcoil which we fog coil all day so rly only hits emmy. Currently my sb has the 2 o-rings, 1 d-sphere, 2 t-crypt, and 1 RiP. I may trade our 1 o-ring for 1 snare. Gotta look into making the sb better bc I have 5 cards for burn atm. Idt I need that many but idk
So anyone have any more test results? Last few weeks I've been caught up with work. I get every other Fri off but I work a lot of OT. Has any new decks emerged that have been issues or any specific new cards caused problems or anything at all you guys wanna discuss?
Yup, the Eldrazis are rising, and we're here drowning in fog. Hadn't seen yet how many annihilator dudes are out there now (annihilator pwns us) but I've seen a couple that are earlier drops than the elder eldrazis such as bane of bala ged. Mostly, new eldrazi's mechanichs consist in casting creatures which when ETB summon some more 1/1 tokens which can be sacrificed for colorless mana (which adds more ramp and/or board presence, but who cares about board presence here), dudes that exile cards from our library when dealing damage and then bringing those exiled cards back to the graveyard which enables them to do sth else such as lifegain ruin processor, ramping with our lands oblivion sower, or even recursing their instants and stuff ulamog's reclaimer. There are also some counterspells which exile instead of sending to graveyard horribly awry, which may see some play as they synergize with the eldrazis' exile stuff, and IMO some eldrazi tribal could be a competitive/viable deck.
What about us? Well, we have the aforementioned stasis snare which is basically a flash journey to nowhere which can be useful not only for annihilator stuff, but also EOT deceiver exarch and stuff.
We have guard duty, which can be also useful against eldrazis for instance.
WE have ob nixilis reignited which, can be a draw engine as well as a wincon AND creature removal eventually.
If someone dares to splash some red, we have crumble to dust which seems awesome against tron, scapeshift, etc.
Errr... we have... new lands?
As for the allies I'm not really worried. Kinda tribal elves IMO.
Tbh... I don't think bane will see competitive play but maybe since it's 7 and that's what ton can do t3. Other than that card, I'm not worried about much. Ob is sexy but he's 5 to play which means we need 6 to play him and fog.
Yeah, but about Ob Nixilis reignited, we'd typically have enough time to cast it, I mean, I've won games on turn +20 as they removed my Jace Beleren or Sphinx's Tutelage and milled them just with the mines. I even won one match by hardcasting Ulamog, the infinite gyre (which I typically use just as another elixir of immortality). I think we can have enough time and lands to cast this one, and then you're right, it's a sexy beast.
At the time I'm kinda looking for new decks as I'm a bit tired of fog right now, and also so I can bring some new potential ideas to this deck. Need some fresh air, you know..
Still, I'm mostly playing decks that are similar to turbofog regarding strategy and range. Things like pillow fort/prison/enduring ideal, time walk/takin' turns, some land hoser I'm brewing which uses choke/blood moon/mind bend and ultimately using urborg, tomb of yawgmoth+karma+runed halo ftw, etc.
Overall, I think what turbofog lacks while comparing it to that sort of decks, it's versatility or a wider array of hosers/removal.
I mean, with those decks, casting one ensnaring bridge equals playing fogs for several turns, it plays the same role, and you don't need to cast it every single turn. What do I mean with this? In the spots we play 16 fogs , they typically play 4 ensnaring bridges, 4runed halos, 4 ghostly prisons, 2 porphyry nodes and 2 oblivion rings.
The difference? we're using 16 spots only for creature damage, they do cover that, but using less cards and also covering a wider array of threats, it may not be as efficient as preventing the whole damage as we do(because some dudes can get thru those prison cards at times), but those "perma-fogs" stack one over the other, so the lock gets harder and late game they have some cool finishers such as form of the dragon+phyrexian unlife which makes them nearly unkillable. We're better on early game, but they grow more board presence over time than us, and that's what I think we need to improve. Takin' turns does so as well, it's kinda weaker early game as you rely only on a few remands among other counterspells, but once you cast 1/2 howling mines and then time warp it's typically game.
Overall, I think what we need here is to improve our matchups against non-straight-forward aggro which only play dudes and no removal. Nothing new, I know, as always turbo fog relies a lot on the meta as we're a creature reactive deck, and that's good if your LGS is flooded with affinity, living end, Twin or even Jund. But if tron, burn, amulet bloom, etc. are what you're into, you'd better have some good sb tech (still think the Tron matchup is practically unwinnable). As for control, I think it's pretty much winnable if we know how to get thru their counterspells, and overfog them.
In order to do this, IMO, we can have some more mainboard removal, and have some more stuff like runed halo which can protect us from eidolon of the great revel, liliana of the veil amongst other planeswalkers, or anything that wants to attack/target us. Maybe some more detention spheres too.
IDK, maybe I'm just frustrated about Tron, facing it everyday on xmage .
Well... I'm think of working on some kind of mana denial deck. Only problem is that some decks in modern can function on 1-2 lands so it makes it hard to work properly u less I can blow lands up t2. But yes... fog has "other variants" but I'd if I'm ever gonna try them. Mostly bc I'm not spending as much money anymore on magic. If I want something, I'll buy it but I'm not collecting like I was so I'm sitting on fog.
Hello, here is a list that I am planning on piloting at my LGS next week. This will be my first modern tournament, so I was wondering if I have any glaring omissions or things that could be improved on.
I am planning to win via the mill route game one, but will bring in elspeth, sun's champion if needed. I was considering angelic ascension in that slot, but I am worried about post board enchantment hate destroying it before it gets online.
I am running Jace Beleren and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea to diversify my turbo. I am very worried about artifact and enchantment hate post board, as most of my turbo is artifacts and enchantments. I feel like I an protect the Jace since I am running three mainboard Leyline of Sanctity and all but four fogs protect him. The leylines are there because we would lose so hard to certain decks game one without them. I need to test what is the correct number of Temple Bell and Dictate of Kruphix, since the bell has a much easier mana cost, but is vulnerable to Ancient Grudge.
I run 21 fog effects including Supreme Verdict.
I may cut the single Dawn Charm as the last mode is usually irrelevant with three leylines.
The Supreme Verdict is there to prevent blue based aggro decks from amassing lethal and countering all my fogs in a turn. The rest of the fogs are pretty standard.
I am running UW instead of Esper so I don't take as much pain from my mana base. Kabira Crossroads is there for lifegain, since I found that the colorless mana from Radiant Fountain or Glimmerpost was next to useless some games.
Sideboard Explanations:
Kami of the Crescent Moon- I am assuming that most non red decks will board out their creature removal in favor of artifact and enchantment hate, and this would replace two of the temple bells or dictates. I'm still not sure that he will make the cut. I am also considering Dakra Mystic here.
Leyline of Sanctity- This is there for redundancy. Is four too many? I figured that I would need all four to combat enchantment hate.
Meddling Mage- I run this over Nevermore for the same reasons as Kami of the Crescent Moon. The plan is to play this against tron naming something like Karn Liberated and protect it. It Also has the potential to slowly beat down.
Negate- This protects my meddling mages and will counter most problem spells in tron.
For other answers for tron, would Mindbreak Trap or Jester's Cap be viable? Mindbreak Trap can "counter" Emerakul. It would still cost the full four, but its versatility may make up for the casting cost. I know that Jester's Cap is not the fastest option, but I like the idea of exiling emerakul before he hits the field, as well as any oblivion stones as well. Do I need to include cards like Detention Sphere, Stasis Snare, and Rest in Peace?
I'd say you are pretty well set up. Again... this is just my experience but most ppl won't destroy the draw effects but the win cons. They like to draw as well. As long as burn is Teir 1, always 4 leyline in the 75. Possibly even more of this effect bc it shuts the entire deck down with the exception of eidolon. Only thing I see missing is a way to shuffle all you fogs back in. I'd always include some way to do this for match ups that last awhile. It just ensures u never get caught with your pants down. Back when I ran with 16 fogs and even now at 20 (very rare with 20) I find myself staring down lethal with 1 or 2 fogs. If theres not enough on top to draw and they counter, that's game. I like having d sphere and o ring for catch alls. Runed Halo dies pretty much the same thing. And RiP can hurt us pretty bad since we shuffle our Graves back in a lot but against snapcasters, random solar flare/gifts decks, living end, and any other grave based interations, it's pretty nice. As mentioned somewhere recently, delve creatures are the flavor of the month so RiP would make that harder for them to cast using delve. Also, you may be able to cut back on the draw spells for something else. You have 13 mine effects. I'd cut 2 dictate for something. Not sure what but since ur probably unsure of the meta, I'd run something that can hit most things. I.e. counterspells or something like o ring or maybe even for 2 ways to shuffle back in the grave. I still back elixir of immortality and possibly even ulamog the infinite gyre bc we can also cast him and usually win after 1-2 swings. And jesters cap may actually be worth thinking about. I forgot that card was modern legal. That would be nice bc it allows us to also remove karn or o stones or key combo pieces in some decks and for us Esper players, we could run a similar effect in Memoricide , Cranial Extraction , and the new one infinite obliteration
No.
Maze's End is a land that comes into play tapped, that requires you to assemble 10 other unique lands that also come into play tapped to win the game.
Let's look at the best case scenario for it:
T1: Gate 1
T2: Gate 2
T3: Gate 3
T4: Rites of Flourishing, Maze's End
T5: Gate 4, Gate 5, return Maze's End look for Gate 6
T6: Gate 7, Maze's End, another Rite (only now do you have enough mana to play your 1st fog)
T7: Gate 8, Gate 9, search Gate 10 with Maze, win.
In your first 10 cards (on play) or 11 (on draw) you need 3 different gates (one of which must have green), Rites and Maze.
In your first 16 cards (on play) or 17 (on draw) you need 8 different gates for this magical Christmasland scenario.
Your wincon is totally noninteractive (except for land destruction coughTronisathinginModern or your Rites dying) which is a plus, but you have no mana to interact with anything your opponent does till T6, by which time you're usually dead in Modern.
Sure you can slow-roll the process which gives you enough time to assemble the necessary Gates, but my traditional Fog deck with no card based wincons and no mill spells can make the opponent draw enough to deck himself by T12-14.
You could replace every land in the traditional Fog deck with Gates, but the CIPT hurts you cos ideally every turn you want enough mana to both Fog (many good fogs i.e. those that save you from burn in addition to creatures cost 3 mana) and play a Howling Mine effect. Plus, once you get your Maze End (which may be on T1, T4 or T7) you can only search out 1 Gate per turn.
You could also try to make it more consistent with Ancient Stirrings, Expedition Map whatnot, but every one of these cards you play is one Fog or Mine less and since Turbofog needs a certain density of Fog and Mine effects to work there aren't that many flex spots to work with.
TL:DR - Maze's End is a flavourful card and unique wincon, but it is too clunky to use unless you extensively build around it and with the amount of support it needs, definitely not in a Fog shell.
Retired: WUEphara, God of the PolisWU blink | WGerrard CapashenW lifegain | WUB Ertai, the CorruptedWUB combo | WAvacyn, Angel of HopeW
mono-white controlangel tribalPauper: UBDimirKittyUB | RBG Deathcycle RBG
Modern: GWUEnchantressGWU | GWUTurbofogGWU
BTW... quote me if im wrong, bu if we have leyline out against burn, they cant touch our planeswalkers bc last I heard, they have to target you and redirect it to the planeswalker but if they cant target us at all, then they cant redirect to the planeswalker. that was my understanding on how players and planeswalkers work. could have been changed and I didn't hear about it but if my memory serves me right, oncve we lay down leyline, they cant target our planeswalker unless the card specifically says destroy target creature or planeswalker because of how a burn spells needs to target us first to be redirected.
-How many copies of monastery siege would you play on your build and replacing what?
-G1 vs Tron is an auto-loss as we can't mill'em and we have no mainboard answers to emrakul, the aeons torn for instance?
-Doesn't runed halo stop the damage but not the annihilator from eldrazis?
BTW, manlands is something I still defend as it's just a backup plan in case they have mainboard answers to mill, at the (IMHO) low cost of nerfing down a couple lands, you have a potential wincon which can save the day, or at least g1. There's no need to animate them if your opponent has some mana opened and you know he's playing creature removal, or even if he has a strong blocker with reach. But I'll stick only to 2 celestial colonnades (instead of creeping tar pit)as they're resilient to lightning bolt.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for putting some light on the burn/planeswalkers stuff, some judge once told me at a FNM that burn is able to hit your planeswalkers even if you have leyline of sanctity out. So since then I was playing that way :/ . But not anymore...
So more reasons to play at least a singleton jace beleren instead of a temple bell.
Oh, and yesterday I've played some long and boring game vs lantern control (a.k.a. fateseal control), but I think the guy was new to the deck or sth because he took plenty of time to play his turns. It was pretty easy to beat him as I hosed him with a turn 0 leyline of sanctity and he scooped after a while, as most (if not all) of his wincons (namely pyrite spellbomb/Ghirapur Æther Grid and the millstones) target, and the millstones can be countered with elixir of immortality.
So, basically I didn't cast any fogs, his topdeck control stuff was useless as I was drawing more cards than what he was able to mill, and he scooped after
I resolved the 2nd elixir. He didn't play g2.
So there it goes the useless matchup of the day.
Oh, and I'll ask it again, do you guys know if there's any way to kick/replace the Original Poster due to inactivity or such, so we can update all the info (card choices, matchups, decklists, videos, strategies, etc) in the first page?
Cheers.
SST.
As far as seige goes, I personally won't run it over anything unless burn takes a rise again. It isn't better than TB in my book bc you can activate bell at instant speed so they cant use the card they draw and force them to discard. You can also use it when u play tutelage and mill away anything they may have scry'd or put on top. Now if I was playing dictate and bell didn't exist, I'd put seize in over dictate bc of your choice to hose decks or draw out ways flash in my opinion and it's easier on the mana at 2u vs 1uu. And I'm not saying it's wrong or a bad idea for manlands, but as a burn player, I believe in VCA so I run very few to no creatures to give them more dead draws. Halo stops the dmg from Emmy but not the annihilator since annihilator doesn't target. It sucks but I find it easier to come back if that's all they have on the board to swing with then taking 15 and losing permanents. If I only lose the permanents, or I feel they are running emmy, I just play my hand smart enough to recover after annihilator. And by all means, if someone knows how to do the primer, go ahead and revamp the entire thing or even create a new primer thread and link this thread to the new one.
Yup, you're right, I guess I overlooked temple bell, monastery siege could be sb tech though, you know, to delay removal and burn, and stuff.
Mhh, I'm not seeing your point here, yes, you prevent the damage, but how do you cast a supreme verdict (only card you have mainboard that could beat emrakul, the aeons torn) once the annihilator made you sac all your lands/mines and you're drawing only 1 card per turn? We don't really play enough permanents to "feed it", so it's just a matter of 1/2 turns to get rid of all our board (including runed halo) and a couple more turns until we run out of fogs/lands.
So, IMO (thinking of your build Tyler here, but possibly applies to most builds) unless we play some mainboard answers to tron/tooth & nail or any deck that plays eldrazis it's always g1 lost for us.
While playing the enduring ideal stuff, some cards that I've found useful for that are nevermore (aim to the oblivion stones also, losing all mines, bells and stuff sucks), prison term, (believe it or not, cast it on any of his dudes ASAP, then switch it to eldrazis) and chained to the rocks (kinda hard to splash red here though)
And I also found out that phyrexian unlife is better than I expected, basically as a lifegain enchantment, which can make 10 life or even more for 3cmc as the infect thing starts triggering ONCE you’re under 0. I.E. If you’re at 3, and your opponent swings for 8, you’ll be now at -5 with no poison counters, so technically in this case, is the same than gaining 15 life. The downside is that if they get rid of it and you’re at 0 or less, you lose.
Ghost quarter may help to stop the tron for a while too.
But anyway, and after sideboarding against it, unless we have PLENTY of answers, it’s still a terrible matchup g2/3. Yes, we can fog their wurmcoil engines all day, and nevermore their Emrakul, the aeons torn , even stop their planeswalkers with pithing needle , which is kinda unlikely to happen in just one match, but still, after that, they can resolve an oblivion stone and reset all our cards, or even a nature’s claim . And I’m not mentioning Emrakul totally shuts down the mill wincon (we can play tormod’s crypt or rest in peace for that).
Maybe I’m being a bit negative, maybe there’s some misinformation on how to play against them of my part, but I truly found no answers after a couple matchs vs those decks.
Still, I’m not saying they’re unwinnable, just really, really hard to beat.
What I feel right now, is that sometimes foggin’ n’ mining’ is just not enough, and as it’s been said before, we’re letting our opponent to dig his entire deck for a solution. Maybe we need to be more versatile, maybe we need the turbofog strategy as a shell for some other strategy, such as the time warp/takin’ turns combo (which I think is really compatible with our strategy and even won a couple events recently), or some other combo stuff (maybe that duskmantle guildmage + mindcrank can work here).
So summing up a bit, IMO what this deck need is.
-Some more spot removal/answers mainboard.
-A Way to win on the spot, or some other wincon than “natural mill”
-Versatility
-A new thread to update the primer every now and then.
Just my 2 cents. Sorry for not answering soon, I also want this to have some more discussion, but can’t find the time at times :P, so whenever I can I just write my thoughts somewhere and the upload the whole thing.
BTW, lantern control just won GP Oklahoma, but it’s still as boring as watching the grass grow.
Oh, and don't overlook prison term, give a try someday. It's better than it looks against eldrazis (maybe I'm being a bit narrow though).
Cheers.
SST.
Every single Tron deck runs Emmy, no matter if we prevent the damage, they still get rid of our mines and lands with the annihilator so unless we get to keep 4 lands and a supreme verdict in hand after the annihilator, we need to draw 2 cards per turn to keep ourselves alive, one land and one fog at least. As we're drawing only one card due to our lack of permanents, we're screwed. And still, if we get rid of him with a verdict, we can't mill 'em due to emmy.
The answers? prison term or nevermore if we want to prevent him from getting into the battlefield/attacking. Oblivion ring or journey to nowhere if some lands survive the annihilator. And finally surgical extraction, leyline of the void, tormod's crypt, relic of progenitus, etc if we're going for the mill wincon (not necessary if we exile him actually).
IMO the best card for spot removing Emrakul, the aeons torn is coming on Battle for Zendlikar, and that would be Stasis Snare, as it basically an instant which can target emrakul.
Still, after that we have to look after karn liberated, ugin, the spirit dragon and the oblivion stones.
BTW, if we're not playing manlands in order to blank our opponent's removal, then we shouldn't play myth realized for the same reason.
As for splashing red instead of black, think we'll lose consistency mainly on the firsts turns due to losing darkness, as well as losing batwing brumes damage. And depending on how much red you're splashing, it sounds a bit slow. I'd play some graveyard shuffling eldrazi instead.
Or even add runeflare trap/cerebral vortex/ebony owl netsuke, due to the amount of card drawing.
Other alt-wincons I thought about are booby trap, baneful omen, staff of nin or sphinx-bone wand, but again, they seem kinda slow/expensive/janky, the latter 2 being slighty better than the first ones IMO as the staff provides some card drawing and the wand can get charged kinda fast(If i had to pay 3 BlaCk I'd be playing underworld dreams for sure).
Cheers.
SST.
Thinking about that... Idk if I would trade them out bc o-ring and d-sphere hit karn and o-stone while the other hits emmy and wurmcoil which we fog coil all day so rly only hits emmy. Currently my sb has the 2 o-rings, 1 d-sphere, 2 t-crypt, and 1 RiP. I may trade our 1 o-ring for 1 snare. Gotta look into making the sb better bc I have 5 cards for burn atm. Idt I need that many but idk
What about us? Well, we have the aforementioned stasis snare which is basically a flash journey to nowhere which can be useful not only for annihilator stuff, but also EOT deceiver exarch and stuff.
We have guard duty, which can be also useful against eldrazis for instance.
WE have ob nixilis reignited which, can be a draw engine as well as a wincon AND creature removal eventually.
If someone dares to splash some red, we have crumble to dust which seems awesome against tron, scapeshift, etc.
Errr... we have... new lands?
As for the allies I'm not really worried. Kinda tribal elves IMO.
Cheers.
SST.
At the time I'm kinda looking for new decks as I'm a bit tired of fog right now, and also so I can bring some new potential ideas to this deck. Need some fresh air, you know..
Still, I'm mostly playing decks that are similar to turbofog regarding strategy and range. Things like pillow fort/prison/enduring ideal, time walk/takin' turns, some land hoser I'm brewing which uses choke/blood moon/mind bend and ultimately using urborg, tomb of yawgmoth+karma+runed halo ftw, etc.
Overall, I think what turbofog lacks while comparing it to that sort of decks, it's versatility or a wider array of hosers/removal.
I mean, with those decks, casting one ensnaring bridge equals playing fogs for several turns, it plays the same role, and you don't need to cast it every single turn. What do I mean with this? In the spots we play 16 fogs , they typically play 4 ensnaring bridges, 4runed halos, 4 ghostly prisons, 2 porphyry nodes and 2 oblivion rings.
The difference? we're using 16 spots only for creature damage, they do cover that, but using less cards and also covering a wider array of threats, it may not be as efficient as preventing the whole damage as we do(because some dudes can get thru those prison cards at times), but those "perma-fogs" stack one over the other, so the lock gets harder and late game they have some cool finishers such as form of the dragon+phyrexian unlife which makes them nearly unkillable. We're better on early game, but they grow more board presence over time than us, and that's what I think we need to improve. Takin' turns does so as well, it's kinda weaker early game as you rely only on a few remands among other counterspells, but once you cast 1/2 howling mines and then time warp it's typically game.
Overall, I think what we need here is to improve our matchups against non-straight-forward aggro which only play dudes and no removal. Nothing new, I know, as always turbo fog relies a lot on the meta as we're a creature reactive deck, and that's good if your LGS is flooded with affinity, living end, Twin or even Jund. But if tron, burn, amulet bloom, etc. are what you're into, you'd better have some good sb tech (still think the Tron matchup is practically unwinnable). As for control, I think it's pretty much winnable if we know how to get thru their counterspells, and overfog them.
In order to do this, IMO, we can have some more mainboard removal, and have some more stuff like runed halo which can protect us from eidolon of the great revel, liliana of the veil amongst other planeswalkers, or anything that wants to attack/target us. Maybe some more detention spheres too.
IDK, maybe I'm just frustrated about Tron, facing it everyday on xmage .
Cheers.
SST.
4x Flooded Strand
3x Hallowed Fountain
2x Island
3x Kabira Crossroads
2x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
5x Plains
3x Polluted Delta
2x Tranquil Cove
Sorcery (3)
3x Supreme Verdict
2x Jace Beleren
2x Angel's Grace
1x Dawn Charm
4x Ethereal Haze
4x Holy Day
4x Pollen Lullaby
2x Riot Control
Enchantment (9)
4x Dictate of Kruphix
3x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Sphinx's Tutelage
Artifact (5)
4x Howling Mine
1x Temple Bell
1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2x Kami of the Crescent Moon
1x Leyline of Sanctity
4x Meddling Mage
4x Negate
3x Runed Halo
Explanations:
I am planning to win via the mill route game one, but will bring in elspeth, sun's champion if needed. I was considering angelic ascension in that slot, but I am worried about post board enchantment hate destroying it before it gets online.
I am running Jace Beleren and Mikokoro, Center of the Sea to diversify my turbo. I am very worried about artifact and enchantment hate post board, as most of my turbo is artifacts and enchantments. I feel like I an protect the Jace since I am running three mainboard Leyline of Sanctity and all but four fogs protect him. The leylines are there because we would lose so hard to certain decks game one without them. I need to test what is the correct number of Temple Bell and Dictate of Kruphix, since the bell has a much easier mana cost, but is vulnerable to Ancient Grudge.
I run 21 fog effects including Supreme Verdict.
I may cut the single Dawn Charm as the last mode is usually irrelevant with three leylines.
The Supreme Verdict is there to prevent blue based aggro decks from amassing lethal and countering all my fogs in a turn. The rest of the fogs are pretty standard.
I am running UW instead of Esper so I don't take as much pain from my mana base. Kabira Crossroads is there for lifegain, since I found that the colorless mana from Radiant Fountain or Glimmerpost was next to useless some games.
Sideboard Explanations:
Kami of the Crescent Moon- I am assuming that most non red decks will board out their creature removal in favor of artifact and enchantment hate, and this would replace two of the temple bells or dictates. I'm still not sure that he will make the cut. I am also considering Dakra Mystic here.
Leyline of Sanctity- This is there for redundancy. Is four too many? I figured that I would need all four to combat enchantment hate.
Meddling Mage- I run this over Nevermore for the same reasons as Kami of the Crescent Moon. The plan is to play this against tron naming something like Karn Liberated and protect it. It Also has the potential to slowly beat down.
Negate- This protects my meddling mages and will counter most problem spells in tron.
Runed Halo- I have this here for Eidolon of the Great Revel, and it is broader that Circle of Protection: Red, such as giving me a full 7 cards to deal with Valakut, The Molten Pinnacle in Scapeshift. I think this is better against burn than Kor Firewalker.
For other answers for tron, would Mindbreak Trap or Jester's Cap be viable? Mindbreak Trap can "counter" Emerakul. It would still cost the full four, but its versatility may make up for the casting cost. I know that Jester's Cap is not the fastest option, but I like the idea of exiling emerakul before he hits the field, as well as any oblivion stones as well. Do I need to include cards like Detention Sphere, Stasis Snare, and Rest in Peace?
Thanks, any feedback would be appreciated.